Feeding Bowl

Or: The day she ate parts of her leg

There is this ruin. The rotten rest of a green wooden house on a lot covered by plants and trees and bushes. You hardly see it. In the back of the rotten ruin is another little house made of stone. A small stone path leads to this house and sometimes you see some clothes hanging on a clothesline. You can see this through the front gate, a green steel gate with strong bars. There is also a dog, a medium-sized, white mongrel with brown spots called Mancha. It’s a nice female dog that causes the other dogs on the street despair when in heat. She’s always sitting on the gate bars looking at the street.

Mancha was getting skinnier every day. Neighbours wondered if she had been put on a diet. One day she escaped. She was in heat once more and so skinny she had managed to pass through the bars of the front gate.  The street is very short and people know each other. They tried to protect Mancha from the other street dogs that attacked her. She looked awful, scared, shaking in distress and so skinny you saw each and every bone of her skeleton. A neighbour finally caught her. The green steel gate was locked. They called some more neighbours to open the gate and enter the house. Rogerio saw it first. He entered the kitchen and saw blood on the floor. The smell of blood, mould, pee and dirt was gross. Then he saw the leg. Flesh. Was she dead? Had this old lady, who lived there, died without anyone noticing it? He came closer. She was lying on the floor. Her right leg was cut open and the flesh wasn’t even red anymore. 

She was breathing! 

Mumbling things. Help! Neighbours carrying her. Water! Ambulance! 

She had fallen and hurt her leg. She called for help but nobody had heard it. She couldn’t feed the dog, that started to lick her blood from the wound. After three days without food the dog had bit a part of her leg. Eaten it. Which probably saved her from the grubs. She thought at least the dog would survive eating her corpse. 

For a long time the old lady didn’t show up. She was in hospital and rumors told she would live with some relatives far away.

After 7 months the clothingline was there again. Mancha sitting on the green steel gate, bulky from tons of food in her feeding bowl, but now the neighbours had a key to the gate.