Rabid dogs can turn on their masters, it's true.
Who is to say where the disease came from,
Who bit who first?
When evening fades and the full moon
Calls the hound to his heritage,
Who can say what company he keeps?
Dogs run in packs;
In packs, they are different, bolder:
What they would defer to as individual hounds,
They maul and devour as a collective.
(I've never understood the law of the pack, myself;
I run alone, mostly.)
But maybe it isn't the pack that brings the disease.
Has the world grown into such a place where the disease is more readily caught?
I've heard of rats, crowded in a laboratory cage, eating their young.
Is it that the world is bigger,
More uncaring, more savage and amoral?
Are we chasing the tail of the Roman empire
As some Cassandras believe is true?
Or do these little monsters just get more media attention today?
Whatever the case, I'm sick of reading about children who murder their parents.
George Chadderdon © 1997