Cats or dogs? The age old debate. While those around me would take a stance with ease, the question always stumped me. Cats? Growing up, my experience with cats was fairly limited. Aside from watching lions in a National Geographic documentary and steering clear of an orange tabby cat named Bootsy that prowled in my neighbor’s front yard, my experience with cats growing up was fairly limited. They didn’t hold very much appeal.
What about dogs? Dogs hold a special place in my heart.
I skipped blissfully down a tree-lined street in Bangalore, India, hand in hand with my cousin Tulasi as we made our way down what looked like a tunnel blanketed in green. Ignoring the shrieks of my younger brother as he struggled to keep up with us, Tulasi and I approached a small park at the end of the street. Consisting of no more than two plastic slides and a jungle gym on a pile of wood chips, the park was nothing extraordinary. But to us, it was a place of freedom, where our wildest imaginations could manifest themselves in the form of games that we would play for hours on end. Slipping down one of the slides, I waved to my mother and aunt as they sat down on a bench in front of me. At the corner of my eye, I saw another man crossing the street towards us.
The man was middle-aged, with gray stubble dotting his chin. Dressed in sweatpants and a beanie, he clasped two leashes in his palm. As my gaze traveled down to the dogs attached, my eyes nearly popped from my head. Though I was only eight years old, I still remember in vivid detail what looked like creatures from my worst nightmare. One brown and the other gray, the two enormous dogs shared the same slanted yellow eyes and pointed ears. As they entered the park, they seemed to look straight at me, parting their lips to reveal long white teeth in wicked grins.
Dragging his dogs towards us, the man approached with a friendly smile, raising his hand in a cheerful greeting.
“Hallo,” he said, his thickly accented English sounding foreign in the Indian air. He turned to my mother and aunt. “Can I let my dogs go?”
My mom nodded her consent. The man began to unclip the leashes.
“Sudden moving not good,” the man said quietly, almost as an afterthought.
I stood frozen, shifting closer to my mom who placed her palms firmly on my shoulders.
As I watched the dogs shake free, my heart beat faster and faster, thumping like a backpack full of books. To my great horror, the dogs took their first few steps of freedom towards me, panting restlessly. As the dogs moved closer and closer, anticipation built in my chest like a bubble of impending doom. Suddenly, the bubble burst.
Wrenching my shoulders away from my mother’s grasp, I sprinted across the field of grass adjacent to the park. Eager to follow, the two dogs bolted after me.
As I ran, wind smacked at me from every direction, somehow leaving me struggling for breath.
I gasped and looked up, spotting a chain link fence several feet away. Aiming to reach it, I ran with my gaze pointed directly ahead. All the while, the two dogs inched closer and closer, their hot, sticky breath layering on my lower legs. I could practically feel the sensation of teeth on skin.
Without warning, the ground fell from underneath me. All at once, my legs and arms folded, and my t-shirt caught on a wire that had been protruding from the fence. As I collapsed into a small, dirt ditch that had been dug beside the fence, my now bare back scraped along the length of the fence, peeling my skin in long, burning scratches.
Meanwhile, the two dogs had caught up to me, yanking me down further into the ditch. They piled suffocatingly on top of me, their tongues saturating my face with a film of saliva. I felt as if I was choking, strangled with no escape in sight. Faintly, I could hear my mother’s shouts of alarm in the distance.
Dogs or cats? My answer? Neither.
