[ WP ] You were adopted some years back and have begun to slowly realize that you 're a dog .

Henry and I were strangers when we first moved in. He told me he needed a new roommate. He said he'd been looking for the right one for ages until he found me. I was still young and did n't know much about the world. I'm sure I was a burden, but Henry never got upset with me. 
 
 Henry was wonderful. He always cooked for both of us, even though our tastes were fairly different. I was always a meat and potatoes kind of guy, but Henry loved his vegetables. He offered me some of his food a few times, but it never really appealed to me. In exchange, I grabbed his paper and the mail in the morning from the end of the driveway. It was hard for Henry to get to it with his arthritis. I even kept the squirrels and cats away from his birdfeeder so he could watch the finches in the afternoons. It was a lot of work, but he seemed to really love those little yellow birds, and he looked so happy when they appeared in the spring. 
 
 One morning, Henry was in the shower- he had this weird habit of always bathing once a day, even if he had n't gotten dirty- when I heard the bone-chilling sound of bone cracking against tile. Henry always sang in the shower, but the singing had stopped. I ran upstairs to check on him. I tried yelling through the bathroom door, but he would n't answer. I panicked. I could n't get the doorknob to turn, and I could n't bust it down no matter how hard I tried. I ran down the stairs and out the back door, which was cracked open as usual. 
 
 Screaming my head off, I sprinted the quarter mile to the neighbors. I pounded on their door, yelling as loudly as I could, until a little girl and her mother came out. 
 
 `` What's got you so worked up, boy?'' the mother asked me, in an insultingly patronizing tone. 
 
 I tried to explain the situation, but she kept telling me to be quiet. `` Come on, I have a baby sleeping inside. No need to bark so much, please,'' she said, almost pleading with me now. `` Gosh, you do n't even have a collar on. I'll have to call Animal Control... let me put you in the backyard.'' 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 It's been a week now since I've seen Henry. The people who picked me up from the lady's house told me everything would be okay. I remember them giving me a shot `` for my nerves'', and then nothing until I was here. 
 
 I'm pretty sure my captors are insane, because they're treating me like I'm a dog. They trapped me in a tiny room with a cushion to sleep on and some rubber balls. They only feed me horrible meat scented cereal and water out of a grimy metal bowl. 
 
 Nobody will acknowledge anything I'm saying. I'm making myself hoarse yelling at them, asking them to take me back to Henry. They keep telling each other that I'm probably just scared and I'll calm down soon, like they think I ca n't understand them. 
 
 I wish I could just let myself out. I did n't realize before that I could n't grab doorknobs. Henry always opened doors for me when I wanted to get through them at home. Here, I ca n't even go to the bathroom on my own. I only get to pee when they put me on a leash and take me outside, usually right alongside a few dogs. Sometimes I see our reflections in cars as we walk by, and I ca n't even tell myself from the dogs anymore. Maybe I'm going insane, but I think being treated like a dog is turning me into one. Surely Henry would have told me if I'd been a dog all along, right? 
 
 Right? 

