Three Dancing Puppies by Kateryna Kotsur

Three chubby puppies, glowing from within,

are dancing in the endless darkness. Ella could laugh at this picture: tiny furry rascals wiggling their bodies.

So, why isn't she doing that? Why is Ella crying? Her eyes, swollen and sore, release teensy droplets of crystal grief. She lies in the fetal position, a single soul in the room. Her bitten lips and the crescents on the skin (she's clenching her fists too hard) are an inch away from bleeding.

Nowhere else do the pups exist than in Ella’s imagination. Not any more. Even if she rushes to the field just now and starts digging up that freshly filled hole, the ground will give her back no living creature.

That is the cruelty of life. Now that she witnessed it, that is Ella’s cruelty, too. (The cruelty is strangling the lungs like ivy wines. It is the coldness in her bones and inability to utter a word.)

Was she oblivious to the intentions of her grandmother when the woman put the newborns in a rubbish bag? Was she, a grown-up lady with a degree in economics, working as a head of a department and raising a child, unaware of how three unwelcome souls would end up?

And there were thousands of chances not to comply. Now, there are thousands of mere what-ifs.

Three dancing puppies have stuck in Ella’s memory for eternity.