once i accidentally stepped on angel’s tail and she yelped, and it was the worst sound i could have heard. once, near the end of her life, when she wasn’t wanting to eat, i dropped her bowl and screamed/cried in anguish and scared her. neither of these were intended, and yet still haunt me and feel unforgivable, even though she did not have the capacity to hold it against me and did forgive me immediately. i still don’t forgive myself for the circumstances of her last few days spent mostly alone in the hospital, because they refused to release her to us and let her be at home. rationally this is not my fault, but it feels like a failing that can never be remedied, like so many other things i have failed at, no matter how far out of my control.
all this to say. i just don’t understand how people, with cruel purpose and malice, intentionally inflict violence and harm and mayhem and irrevocable trauma on living beings of any kind (human or animal), i don’t understand how you can get so far into the darkness that you switch off the cutting sense of hurt and horror i felt just hearing that squeak from my precious dog’s tail getting pinched for a split second. i don’t understand how history and the present day are littered with utter disregard of, or derivement of pleasure in, inflicting damage and pain. i don’t understand how you can hear a cry and not feel like you’re going to bleed to death from it. i don’t understand how the grief isn’t so overwhelming that no one would ever do any of that to begin with. i don’t understand why the world has ever been the way that it is. i understand it less the longer i have to live in it.