Furs

• Piers Motherway, Grade 8, Christian Brothers College
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

My paws plodded across the damp floor of an alleyway, looking for a clean wall to tag, the next evolution of humans didn’t need to obey the rules all the time right? I let out a small chuckle as I realized, there were no clean walls for miles away they were either stained with posters, spray-paint or blood. Nothing was nice anymore, riots happened daily on this side of the wall, I could hear them while I tried to sleep and all they shouted was “Break the Wall down” as they marched down the city with signs, posters, guns and knives all hating on the government for their decisions. But I know that if they broke the wall down I’d pray every night that the mean humans didn’t find us and put us down just like their pets all because we were different.
Now I am impatient, so in the blink of an eye I climbed to the top of the building I was next, to steadying myself with my tail and coming to a halt at the top. Looking over the city I say out loud “why’d it drop in the first place”. As I said those words I saw a billboard for the D.H.P. (department of human protection), Emphasis on human because any fur they see doing slightly the wrong thing gets locked in a cell for the rest of their life, which is quite short because prisoners don’t like furs. So I decided to head over, jumping from rooftop to rooftop trying not to get seen until I reached the billboard.
After climbing the ladder the people used to stick the billboard up I kicked it down so I wouldn’t be interrupted while I was making my masterpiece. I started taking my cans out of my backpack when I heard someone from down below me yell “Get down-ya vermin” In these types of situations it is best not to reply or they might call the D.H.P. I started brainstorming ideas of tags, maybe I could do something funny, maybe something serious but in the end I went with the usual, a strong political message. I used red to paint fire, orange for the massive explosion and green for the mutating effects of radiation. What I showed in the image was the truth, the events of thirty years ago went all wrong during the 2024 election when Steven Koshen was elected president of the U.S.A. Koshen was a moron and got elected through fear. In his second term he went insane with the power he had and wanted to leave his mark on the world so he launched a nuclear bomb near a water plant causing newborns to be walking talking animals with apposable thumbs courtesy of radiation. A D.H.P agent yelled for me to get down or he’ll taze me before locking me up. I looked down at a truck that I could jump on to the back of to make a quick getaway “gotta run”