tiny tale (pt. iii)

we spent that fall taking turns in this room with the apple box. the routine was fairly simple: they would sound a buzzer, and two or three seconds later, a piece of apple would show up in the box. there wasn’t much to do in this room other than open the box, so that’s what we did. even though we knew they tended to sound the buzzer before dropping the apple, sometimes we would check the box just in case there was some mistake.

all the while we wondered what they could possibly be doing, hiding behind the wall over there pressing their strange buttons and sending apples into this strange box with us all tied up like this.

that winter, a new signal appeared — the clear chiming of a bell. this chiming would be accompanied by a sharp zap on the foreleg tied up by the harness. but though it was painful, it was nothing compared to the spiritual humiliation we had already been subjected to what with the leashes and the harnesses and being forced to stare at that box. so we just stood there and took it.

at this point, apples stopped showing up in the box, only shocks.

later, they started interchanging them. apple day, shock day, apple day, shock day. we started to hate the room more and more. especially the damned apple box, which seemed to be the reason we were trapped.

needless to say, our mental health deteriorated. the shocking was about as far as we could handle. so when they started introducing new buzzers and sounds, we reeled between rebelling and disassociating. my memory of these days gets spottier and spottier.

i do remember they would still take us on walks in the snow.

we all loved that.