MY OWN CHOICE

I sat patiently waiting as they raffled off the last of the five baby chicks in the classroom. I was only in Kindergarten, so the only thing that mattered to me was winning that baby chick and raising it as my own.

I sat there in desperation and hope. The teacher was raising the last name in the hat. My heart began to pound a little harder and I began to block out the noises of the happy children who had already received their own baby chick.

"And the last one goes to...Valentina!"
Instantly I stood up with a large smile plastered on my face that somehow seemed to not want to fade away.
Yes! I got it! I could not wait to take him home and show my parents.

At the time, we were living in some green apartments near my elementary school so I walked home. As I approached my mother and father, they granted me nothing but about three seconds of fame before they returned to their packing. We were preparing to move into our new home that my parents had built with their own two hands all the way across town.

"Andale mija, empaca el resto de tus cosas." she said as she sent me to my room. But I did not want to pack. All I wanted to do was play with Pollito, which is the name I decided to give my baby chick. I walked in my room, closed the door, took him out of his box and began playing with him. He was the cutest thing in the universe.

"Guess what? You get to live with me in my new house!" I told Pollito. His responds were tiny chirps but he left me content with just that.

Words cannot explain my relationship with this wonderful creature. I had never felt so close to something or loved anything in my life so much as that baby chick. It was a form of companionship that I had never experienced. It was almost inexplicable. Pollito was just so innocent and cute! I grew to become super close to what I would have considered without a doubt "my life" at the time. The amount of joy this animal gave me could not be measured in any scale. This lasted for about two more weeks until I made the biggest mistake of my life.

It was the morning of the day we were moving into our new home. I walked right through that front door with nothing other than my baby chick. The minute I entered my new home my parents halted me at the door.

"No, no, no Tina. He can't come in." I almost dropped him!
"What do you mean?" I screamed.
They attempted to explain to me in the kindest and sweetest words that for some very peculiar reason in the universe, animals such as my own were not accepted in the community of these new town homes because they could cause a disturbance to the neighbor's. All I did was cry. As a young confused five year old, to me that made no sense. Who were these evil landowners to tell me what I can and can't do?  

"But no one will know if I keep it in my room!" I yelled to them with their tears rushing down my face.
"Hahaha! Tina mija, it will soon grow into a large chicken and then it will definitely be an inconvenience to the neighborhood!" She tried explaining, but I did not care. I was furious.

"No it wont! It will always be this size!" I yelled. I went hours kicking and crying and screaming at the top of my lungs, completely naive at the time of course. But my anger soon grew into depression when they said their plans for the next day.

"Tell you what, tomorrow we will take him down to Lola's ranch and she will take care of him okay?" claimed the evil masters.
"No! He's mine, NOT hers!" I screamed.

Lola was my mother's best friend who happened to own a ranch in the city of Casmalia. She had every animal you can think of in her ranch which was exactly why my parents thought it would be a great idea to abandon my baby in this loveless lot. They said they were going to take me the next day just so that they could "temporarily" take care of him and promised, making one of many false promises, that I would be getting him back soon. However, it was hard to depict their lies through the simplicity of their words.

I hardly even slept that night just thinking of how lonely I would be without him. I spent my last few possible hours with Pollito. I was completely devastated, heartbroken, and I absolutely despised my parents. It was the hardest thing in the world that I ever had to do. Yet, I knew that I had to let him go, for a while of course since my parents had promised to permit me one visit per day, another lie indeed.

The next day, we went to the ranch and they forcibly took him from my arms. I went back to the car eyes dripping with tears. I had never cried so much in my life. I refused to get out of the car. My parents finally decided to leave as soon as they realized I was about to throw one of my famous tantrums, the kind I would throw in stores to get what I wanted. I did not speak to them the entire ride home, nor for the rest of that day.

Apparently the evil masters felt "bad," I did not that cold hearts felt such emotions, because they took me back the next day. Took me back only to break my heart into a million pieces.

We arrived only to be given the worst possible news on the planet. Lola and her husband took me to the shed where they kept the chicks and chickens. They showed me a massive animal-made hole on the side of the coup.

"A coyote was here last night. He ate every single baby chick... including Pollito."

MY HEART DROPPED.

Pollito had died, and with him, so did I. To this day, I loathe all animals. I vowed to show no affection to another warm-blooded animal on the planet.

May you rest in peace Pollito.