Heaven’s Steely Gates
Anya Ellis
Anya Ellis
A metal frame, outlining the future home of thousands, glistened against the harsh sun, an oasis amidst Phoebe's barren life. The glint first caught her doe eyes a little after her eighth birthday.
“Wait, what’s that?” Phoebe asked, diverting the conversation. She motioned out the window, identifying the construction site.
“A shelter,” her mother, Sarah, answered before attempting to resume their previous conversation.
Phoebe’s ears perked up, suddenly alert, as she moved forward in her seat. “For pets?” she inquired, excitedly.
“Mhm… but-”
Phoebe cut her mother off with a high pitched squeal, bouncing up in her seat. “This means I can get an animal!” she declared, already picturing herself with a perfect companion. Her parents glanced at each other, as she planned everything in her mind, hoping the other would deliver the bad news. Her father, Paul, eventually gave in and became the bad guy, already exhausted for what’s to come.
He met Phoebe's eyes through the rearview window. “Phoebe, we’ve talked about this. Your mother and I believe you need to grow up a bit before we can get a pet. They are a lot of work.”
“I’m eight now! That’s old enough!” Phoebe whined, thrashing her body dramatically.
“The answer is no. Age does not equal maturity”
Phoebe clenched her jaw, a hardness settling over her. “Is it a kill shelter?”
“Yes, I believe it is,” Paul stated, guilty.
“Then all the mammals will die before I’m old enough to adopt one,” she spat, narrowing her eyes.
Phoebe had longed for a pet for years. It felt as though from the moment she learned to talk, she was asking her parents for a mammal of her own. This desire grew around her heart as she gazed at the construction site. She envisioned digging her heels into the soft dirt, ready to stand there forever, the future concrete cementing her into place. She was ready to do whatever it took to get in there and adopt a pet. And every time her family passed the construction site, she would turn her rounded eyes toward her parents and not so silently beg.
The shelter was completed a year later, filling the neighborhood with new pets. Phoebe was sure that every person in the city besides her had a companion.
“I got mine from a breeder,” her classmate Rebecca bragged as she showed the group of third-grade girls photos of the pet, “She's a purebred Italian.” When the phone was put into Phoebe's line of sight, she was able to see the creature’s innocent wide eyed bore into her narrowed ones. It was adorable. She hated it.
“We got a baby, of course,”she continued as the other girls cooed at the photos. There was a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘so cutes,’ which all seemed to greatly satisfy Rebecca as she smirked toward the adoring fans.
“Lucky,” Phoebe sighed dramatically, “My parents still won’t let me get a pet.”
“Even from the shelter?” Jade piped up. Rebecca widened her eyes, aghast at her comment.
“Ew,” Rebecca said, turning her nose up at the idea. “It's not even worth looking for a pet there. My dad says the shelter is disgusting and full of a bunch of unwanted mutts.” Phoebe's shoulders hunched, suddenly self conscious about her fascination with the shelter.
“Well, yeah it's a bunch of mutts, but Phoebe is desperate,” Jade defended her idea. “It’s super easy to get one there and like really cheap”
“There's nothing wrong with mutts, Rebecca,” Phoebe stated, recoiling into her body as her cheeks warmed. Her comment was merely met with the sound of laughter and the ringing of the school bell.
“Not worth it, girl,” Rebeca warned, looking Phoebe in the eyes now.
Later in class Phoebe pulled at Rebecca’s sleeve while the teacher’s back was turned. She leaned over and whispered, “It's a kill shelter, though.”
“Okay?” Rebecca asked, eyebrows raised.
“The mammals will die if they don’t get adopted,” Phoebe explained, emphasizing every word as if it were her last.
“That's sad,” Rebecca hummed while she continued to copy down what the teacher was writing on the whiteboard. Her lack of engagement irked Phoebe and she began to grind her teeth. It wasn’t just sad. It was horrific. And Rebecca didn’t really care. No one cared besides Phoebe.
“Well, I want a mutt.”
“Well then, I guess at least one of them will live,” Rebecca whispered snidely.
“I want a mutt!”
Phoebe repeated to her parents when she got home from school that day, “They will die if I don’t save them, and they don’t deserve to die. It’s not right what happens in that shelter.” She imagined all the ways a poor mammal might die in a shelter, not knowing really how it happened. “I need to save them.”
“This again, really?” her mother questioned, looking up from the paté she was making for dinner.
“The unwanted die. That’s just how it is.”
Two years passed by, but Phoebe's desire never wavered. She greeted her parents every morning with an inquiry to whether they changed their minds overnight. It was the last thing she discussed, amidst goodnight kisses. And any chance she got to mention it in between, she did.
Who could blame her, really, when one by one her other friends got pets of their own. Purebreds just like Rebecca’s. Rebecca named her mammal “Lucy.” Phoebe became obsessed with Lucy, believing Lucy felt the same. She told everyone that it was “love at first sight,” instantly connecting with the plush mammal as it crawled down the hallway and those big brown eyes gazed up at her. Phoebe constantly went over to Rebecca’s, making any excuse necessary, so she could play with Lucy. She even debated stealing it a couple of times, believing she would be a better caretaker.
Lucy made Phoebe’s desire become desperation. One that seeped into every family dinner, car ride, and most TV commercials and movies.
Phoebe's parents might’ve said yes just to shut her up. Maybe they realized it wasn’t a passing fad or that she was finally mature enough to be responsible for a pet. It didn’t really matter why they said yes. All that mattered is that they finally said yes instead of no.
“If we allow you to get a pet-,” her father began, ready to give a speech about the responsibility of caring for another living creature.
“I’m getting a pet?!” Phoebe squeaked, jumping up from her seat.
“We are considering it.”
“Please! I’ll do anything!” she begged, bouncing on her feet with puppy dog eyes.
“You’d have to get it trained,” her father told her sternly.
“I will!”
“I’m serious, Phoebe. It better be potty trained. It better not go to the bathroom on the floor or outside in the yard.”
“It won’t!”
“Also, it better not throw up anywhere.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t!”
“Or wake us up in the middle of the night. You know how much your mother loves her sleep, and those things always cry so much when they’re young.”
“It won’t cry! It won’t! I swear I’ll make sure that it’s the most well-behaved pet you’ve ever seen!”
“It's got to listen to our commands as well. I don’t want it to be any trouble.”
“That's what the obedience classes are for!” Phoebe said, bouncing in her seat, still high off of the news that she was finally getting a pet of her own, “It's going to be perfect!”
Phoebe didn’t wait for her parents to change their minds, insisting they drive to the shelter the first Saturday morning after that magical “Yes.”
Phoebe stopped just inside the shelter door and scanned the room. The open space was clinical, reminding her of a hospital. It was clean yet she felt dirty standing there. The floors were linoleum, the kind that would screech if you scuffed your sneakers as you walked. Floor to ceiling cages filled with all the different animals that varied from size and age, to color and shape, filled the space. The only thing that seemed universal was the longing in their eyes, all of them trained on her. She saw them rush to press their faces against the bars, attempting to gain her attention.
Phoebe could not believe her eyes. She kept expecting the sight in front of her to disappear in the brief moments of darkness as she blinked. Once the image gained permanence in her mind, she began skipping down the hallway, making her way to the infant section with a big smile on her face. Phoebe was in heaven. And she was ready to open the metal gates and let one of these angels escape death and come down to earth with her. She giggled to herself as the thought occurred to her. Here, she was God.
Once she entered the section that housed the babies she began looking inside every single cage, almost methodically. She would grip the metal gates and poke her nose in, then measure and judge every aspect of the animal in front of her. She would’ve counted the hairs on their heads if she were allowed to, and she did not really understand why she wasn’t. What she did understand that she probably looked like a lunatic, but she did not care. She was going to do whatever it took to find the perfect baby to take home. A pet that no one would even think was a mutt. They would ask her what breeder she got it from. They would even ask if she could refer them. Then, once they had fawned over it, she would look them in the eye and tell them, “No, no. It isn’t from a breeder. It’s from the shelter.” She would tell them how she saved it, and how it meant the world to her. She would discuss how cruel it was that these mammals were to die if they were unwanted. How more people should consider saving these loving pets, and they would be in awe of her.
Her father watched her with tired eyes as she examined the next row of pets who mostly were fast asleep in their cages. Although, a few met her wide eyed gazes with their own. Others playfully giggled at her or stuck out their tongues. Some even cried out when they saw her as if she were their mother finally coming to rescue them. She liked those ones the most. She would stretch her figures through the openings in the metal so they could latch on to her. She would smile and soothe them. It filled her with so much joy that she could help these little things. She could give them food, water, a home, and love. She could give them things they would never get here, or anywhere else, and they would give her things as well. Then, she saw it. She saw the baby that she would take home. She knew it was the one as soon as she saw it and its teary eyes. Its hand reached out and touched her, big brown eyes mooning up at her. She was in love.
“This one”, she said excitedly, turning to the worker who had come along to guide her and her father, “I want this one.”
“Perfect,” the worker said with a huge smile.
“Isn’t it pretty?” Phoebe prodded the worker, already bragging.
“She is very pretty,” the worker answered, “She is half Italian, half Greek and very popular amongst the staff here.” She began to unlock the cage and pull the pet out. “Be very careful now,” she told Phoebe as she handed her the baby.
“Isn’t it pretty,” Phoebe asked again, this time to her dad. She held the baby up by its armpits making the worker cringe.
“It looks like Rebecca’s.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Phoebe insisted, “Lucy has way lighter skin. Besides, it's way prettier than Lucy.”
Suddenly workers donning huge gloves and boots came into the open space. One lifted his head so his eyes, once covered by his baseball cap, could meet with theirs. He warmly smiled and said hello as his partner began to unlock a cage near where Phoebe entered. They met him with a warm greeting of their own and curious eyes. Their curiosity was soon soothed as the workers pulled out a withering and wrinkly old man. His shoulders shook as he hung his head, and it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. Even Phoebe's young mind caught on fast as the guard with once kind eyes seized the pet, ready to drag it. But He did not have to drag it. The human walked, slowly moving its bare feet. Phoebe looked down at it’s feet, waiting for the laminate floor to squeak the way it does in gym class when someone slides across it, but it didn’t. In fact, it was deadly quiet in the room as if every mammal knew what was happening and didn’t dare make a sound. As if, even the floors held their breath, out of respect. The room remained like that for a while as Phoebe stared at the pet’s back watching it walk out of the double doors with a glowing neon exit sign above it. It was the same doors that Phoebe entered in and would leave out of.
“They’re going to kill it, aren’t they?” Phoebe questioned as her eyes remained glued to the large doors.
“It's been here too long, sweetie. They need to make room for other animals. Ones that actually have a chance of being adopted”
“That’s true…”
“It’s old. No one wants them when they're like that. I mean, do you?”
“Well I mean, no. They aren’t very fun when they’re old. Nor pretty. They are very dependent though.”
She noticed as she walked back by a lot of the animals didn’t seem interested in her at all. She could’ve sworn that when she walked in they were all in love with her. However, they now had a bored look on their faces as they watched her pass from the edge of their cots, positioned at the back of their cells. Some opted to sit on the concrete ground instead. And some didn’t even look at her at all. Not even when she began stomping her feet into the floor and raising her voice while she spoke to her father about her love for her new pet. Honestly, it was no wonder none of them got adopted. They would soon be dead just like that old man, and Phoebe couldn’t help but think that this fate was partly their own doing. They were nothing like the plushy baby that she held in her arms, its face gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Shiny and new.
