First it was the pet shop. They found me and placed me there, in a back aisle where customers rarely saw me. The boys forgot to feed me, and it was there that I thought I would die first. Then that woman bought me, and I was happy for a small while until she died. Then it was the empty apartment, scurrying to find any food I might on the floor or behind the refrigerator. When her kids came to clean up the place, they didn’t see me as a pet, and I had to flee. Then it was the sidewalks, alleyways, trash bins on the city streets. It was in one of those trash bins that I found myself most recently when I was lifted from my meal into the back of a vehicle and tossed somewhere different, far away from my familiar scenes. The dump in the desert …

And now I find myself in the scorching sand, with the sun shining down on me like the lamps used to shine in my tank at the pet shop, only harsher. The sand burns my belly yet there’s no shade to find for miles and miles, which are large measurements for me. I can only crawl onwards until I wither and die. This will be the last of my movements.