My first uncertain steps soon became giant leaps that took me to the canal. I stepped into the water fully dressed. I started groping in the water around. I felt a sense of exhilaration imbued with anger for not having thought about it earlier!
I finally managed to find the bag with the kittens in it. I grabbed it with trembling hands and towed it out of the water. They were all dead, drowned. Empty inside, I turned myself in to desperation, helplessness and resignation; my feet could carry me no more. I fell onto my knees, crouching with pain. My whole body shuddered from the inside out in a sobbing wail, as if my mother had died and not just a few kittens. When I had no more tears to cry, a snotty nose, mud everywhere and dirty all over, which I couldn’t care less for, I tied up the bag
