Fatal fashion
I was padding silently through the crisp snow; the sun was just rising behind me, throwing a strange, but beautiful golden light on the trees in front of me. I stopped now, having spotted my potential breakfast, and crouched ready to spring.
My powerful legs surged beneath me as I suddenly bounded after the rabbit I had my eye on. The air was cold, bitterly cold, but I found that my thick coat kept me warm. Freedom! Ah, there must be nothing like it. I ran on, enjoying the thrill of the hunt.
...CRASH I flipped over and landed heavily on the ground. A pain, a very fierce pain unlike any I had ever felt before, spread like wildfire from my front leg right through my body. My eyes searched for its source and laid to rest on a huge pair of metal jaws clamped tightly on my crushed leg. I let out an agonised yowl and faded slowly into oblivion.
"May I help you?" the attractive young shop assistant asked the middle aged woman who was trying hard to hide her obvious wrinkles and greying hair under layers of make-up and a dark red/brown hair dye.
The older woman gasped dramatically, pointed to a huge fur coat hanging in the corner and exclaimed: "Oh, it's beautiful! What is it?"
"Good taste madam," replied the young lady. "That is a genuine lynx," as she helped the woman into the coat.
After oohing and aahing for a while in front of an oversized mirror, a very large amount of money changed hands and the fur's new owner trotted smugly out of the store and away down the street.
Slowly opening my eyes, I saw a familiar face peering down at me. The pain was still there in my leg, and the trap as still around it. A chunk of meat was dropped at my side by a cat from my large family. I was vaguely surprised that they knew where I was, but I was very hungry and no thoughts lingered as a dug in. It was getting dark; I must have been there all day.
After a while I tried to get up. I was going to beat that damned trap, no matter how long it took. I fell straight back down. The pain was worse than I had bargained for, and those jaws weren't about to open in a hurry.
Waking up again with the morning sun in my eyes, I was weak, very sore, and angry. I needed so badly to be free. I yearned to run. I could not understand why this terrible thing had happened to me.
I continue to wake each morning. And each morning I feel weaker. I gave up trying to escape days ago; the jaws are strong and pegged firmly to the ground.
This morning when I woke up I noticed, in the distance, two men walking towards me. They're getting closer all the time. I don't know much about men, but I do know that they're powerful - quite possibly my last chance to be free again. I'll have to wait, and hope.
"Cripes!" exclaimed George to Harry.
"What?" his mate replied, sounding genuinely interested.
"Take a look at that." He pointed to the leg hold trap, now less than twenty metres in front of them. "The bloody mongrel's still alive": the lynx, squirming, trapped, was indeed still alive.
"It's been there for a week ya know George," commented Harry.
"That's what I call staying power," said George as he quickened his pace, swung a large club and dealt a fatal blow to the head of the petrified cat, helplessly cringing and growling in the snow at their feet.
The trap was opened, the limp body removed, and the trap reset. The two men bagged the cat and slowly set off into the distance, the dead weight dragging behind them.
"That'll be worth a bit," said one small man on a vast, seemingly pure landscape.
"Yeah, good one!" replied the other little man as a group of cats disappeared, silently, into a cluster of trees.
Samantha Madell, year 11, Dundas NSW
This story comes from the collection Voices for the Animals - A Collection of Stories and Poems by Australian School Students .
Animal Liberation SA holds the copyright to these works. Permission is granted to teachers to make copies for their own students.