With my folded, pinned, kitten ears I heard anger from human voices. I snuggled closer to my mother and tried to keep away from the human shapes that flitted like dark shadows. I was never far from her. She called me the loneliest kitten ever.

The humans didn’t want us. One day the man threw us kittens into a box and drove away in his growling beast. We slithered every which way until the truck stopped, then the bottom broke and I slid out onto a hard grey surface. The man made angry sounds, picked up the box with my brothers and sisters and kept going until I couldn’t hear them anymore.

Alone and afraid I hid under a blue metal bin as big as a house. Sometimes bits of food fell out, meat or bread or other slimy stuff. I drank from the puddles at night and ate moths and crawling things. I was sure that no one ever saw me - none of the quick, stomping humans with their loose, grey overalls carrying clanky, heavy things here and there.

There was no soft green grass, no shelter from the wind, but under the blue metal bin as big as a house I was dry and hidden away. Hiding was my best talent. I crept low. I slunk quietly, never meowing or making a sound. Sometimes hissing cats or drooling dogs tried to get at me under the bin. They could only get their paws in the small space.

A large hand reached under and grabbed me. Where would I be taken this time? I had learned that life was full of sudden things.