A couple of weeks ago, I submitted this story to one of Reedsy’s short story contests. I’m very proud of it! Enjoy.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m afraid a lot of the time. Everything around me is just so big and noisy, you know? Though the noisiness isn’t as much of an issue these days. I don’t really know how to tell them that I can’t hear much of what they’re saying anymore, despite having these big bat ears. I think they’re catching on, because they have to wake me up to go for walks or to go to bed, but never for breakfast and dinner. I know when those are.
I may be scared a lot of the time, but all I know is that I feel safe with these people, my family. Before I came to live with them, I was all by myself. I don’t know what happened to my mama and brothers and sisters, but one day I was with them, all in a pile, warm and snuggled up in a playpen full of blankets, and the next we were in a box on the side of the road. It was a hot day, I remember that for sure, the kind of hot day that sizzled. And there was a distinct buzzing sound coming from the tree branches that hung over our box. I didn’t want to be in the box. I wanted to be with my mama, but she was gone and none of us could climb out on our own. We tried. We climbed on top of each other. One of my brothers almost made it, but his legs were too short and he toppled backward into the center of the box and then we all piled on top of him, wiggling and squealing. Occasionally, a face would peer down at us, smiling. Then hands would reach into our box and pull one of us out. I never did see any of them again.
Twilight set in and I found myself alone in the box, afraid for the first time. I’d never been alone before. I was hungry. And thirsty. I wanted my mama and my brothers and sisters. As night fell, I started hearing the kinds of sounds I’d only heard muffled from the playpen, tucked safe inside the house. Outside, everything was a lot louder. There were bugs, lots of bugs, crickets chirping and cicadas buzzing. I could hear an owl hooting from the hollow of the tree just next to me. That one scared me badly. I didn’t want her to mistake me for mouse, so I did my best to curl up in the corner of my box, hoping maybe she wouldn’t see me. There were other frightening sounds. In the distance, I could hear a vixen and her kits. All at once, I was scared and missed my mama even more. They had their mama, why couldn’t I have mine?
In the early morning hours, there was a rumbling far, far away. It started low, but gradually, the rumbling turned into a thunderous roar, accompanied by bright flashes of blue and white light and a heavy rain. When it was on top of me, it was all I could hear. No longer could I hear the crickets or the cicadas or the owl or the foxes. No longer could I hear the humans and my mama inside the house, safe and warm in their beds. All I could hear was the rain pouring down on me, the thunder crashing over my head. I was afraid that maybe something would fall on me, but still, I couldn’t get out of my box. I was cold and wet and scared and hungry and thirsty and tired and I wanted my mama.
Eventually, the rain stopped and the sun broke through the canopy of leaves above me. The scary night sounds were replaced by bees busily buzzing around the wildflowers by my box, bluebirds chirping in the trees, cars whooshing by, dangerously close. My box felt squishy and when I felt brave enough to move around, I found that its walls had sagged enough that I could easily leap over the side onto the dewy grass. Oh, how I loved the feeling of the soft blades, tickly clover, and velvety mud between my paw pads! It was so different compared to the scratchy blankets inside the playpen or the warm softness of my mama’s belly or the rough bottom of the box. Forgetting my fears for a moment, I flipped onto my back and wiggled around on the grass. I wanted to feel it all over me! I wanted to feel it on my head, let it tickle my ears, my neck, my back, my tail! I rolled back over so I could see what it felt like on my belly, it was cool and damp. I buried my snout in the soil and I smelled everything. I smelled life itself! It was new and it was fresh and I was new and I was fresh and I was free of the box and I thought maybe, if I could just roll around in the wet grass in the early morning sun forever, I would be just fine.
But then my tummy was rumbling and I remembered: I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was tired, and I wanted my mama. And I was scared again, because I didn’t know what to eat or how to eat all by myself. I sat up in the grass and looked around, letting out a little yip. Behind my box, up a little driveway, was the house where my mama was. In front of my box was the road and the road scared me, especially at that time of day, because it was busy with cars and trucks and buses and they were going so fast. To my right and to my left, just trees. I couldn’t really see much else, being so close to the ground, but I could hear the sounds of people so there must’ve been houses tucked in those trees. I decided to go back to the house and see my mama. I walked off of the grass and onto the gravely dirt driveway, pocked here and there with holes full of that yucky rainwater from the previous night. I avoided those as best I could, but as I got closer to the house, there were more watery holes than dry places to walk, so my little paws squished in the mud and sharp rocks and I did not like that as much as I liked the grass.
I didn’t know how to climb the steps to the door. They were so tall! I sat on my hind legs and placed my front paws against the warm cement, but I couldn’t reach the top of the step that way. I was wobbly, but I raised myself up on my back legs and my paws could just reach the edge. I stretched and stretched and sniffed and listened, but the sounds of my surroundings stayed the same. All at once, I jumped! But I missed the step and scraped my snout on the rough riser. That didn’t feel good. I backed up a little bit and with a yip, I took off running, launching myself toward that step and I made it! I was so proud of myself, my tail wiggled and wagged. But then I realized there was another step and without a running start, there was no way I could make it up. Besides, the sun felt good and the step was warm and I was so sleepy from my romp, so I decided it would be okay to take a little nap right then and there. Mama would understand.
But I never did get to see her again. A little while later, I awoke to a pair of strong hands picking me up. I recognized his smell right away—he was the one who took me from my mama. I struggled, but he was too big and too strong to let met go. I nipped at him with my little milk teeth and I think I must’ve cut the skin because he swore but that only made him hold me tighter. It didn’t hurt, but I could tell he didn’t want me. And he didn’t want me to see my mama. He walked me back my box but swore again when he saw that it was all mashed up. He held me close, just under his chin, and I could hear his heart and that made me feel safe. He scratched between my ears and said, “What are we gonna do with you, little fella?” And then he took me to his pickup truck and gave me some treats from the pocket in the door. They were hard to eat because my teeth weren’t that hard yet and I only really had my mama’s milk, so he crushed them up a little.
I thought maybe he was going to let me come inside, but he didn’t. Instead, he closed the door and we drove away, far away from my mama and my playpen and my box. He drove me to the river. When we got to its rocky shore, he opened the door and put me down on the ground with a handful of crushed milkbones. I sat there, looking up at him. He said, “git,” but I didn’t know what that meant, so I wagged my stubby little tail. He said, “go,” but I didn’t know what that meant, so I laid down and put my snout between my paws. He said, “aw, shit,” and closed the door of his truck and drove away and then I was alone again. And I was afraid again.
I could hear cars on the road, but they were far away now. From my perch at the water’s edge, I could hear the strong current rushing by, and that scared me. I could hear birds and bees and crickets and moles and rabbits and foxes and big cats and bears and I don’t know what else, it all blended together. And there were so many smells. I didn’t know what to do, so I just curled up and went to sleep. When I woke up, it was dark again and I was scared again. I’d finished my biscuits but my tummy was rumbling. I thought maybe if I could find my way to the road, I could find my way back to my mama. So I started walking.
I walked for a long time through the woods, eating grass and worms and whatever else was soft and easy to chew. I was scared all the time, day and night, but all I could think about was my mama. The summer’s heat started to dissipate and I was getting bigger and stronger every day. My baby teeth fell out and I grew my big teeth and it was easier to eat. I did eventually find the road, but I couldn’t smell the house where my mama was and I couldn’t hear the house where my mama was. Instead, I came upon a dilapidated strip mall. There were a few stores: a grocery, a Chinese restaurant, and a laundromat. The other storefronts were abandoned; vagrants like me only human burrowed into those spaces to make homes for themselves, so I tried to do that too.
For a while, I tried to make that place my home, always hoping I’d get back to mama. The grocery store clerks left scraps for me beside the dumpster. The cashier at the Chinese restaurant snuck me bowls of milk. The laundress made a bed for me in with an old milk crate and forgotten towels. The unhoused pet me and played with me, but didn’t let me stay with them, fearing that they’d have to pick up and leave at any moment, not wanting to be attached to anything, not even a thing as small as me. It was okay, and I was less scared, because the sounds and lights were different than the woods. It was always illuminated whether from the sun or the stores or the flickering streetlights. There was always chatter and humming from the people. But everywhere I went was hard and rough and the weeds that sprouted through cracks in the pavement pricked my paws and I was always hungry despite the scraps and always thirsty despite the water and always lonely despite the people and always afraid. After a while, I noticed that I couldn’t see so well from my right eye, like something was in the way. I tried to clear it away with my paws, but that hurt, so I stopped.
One day I was sleeping and I heard a young woman’s voice. She said, “oh poor dear,” and reached for me. I was used to that, but then she picked me up and looked at my eyes and ears and felt my ribs and made a clicking sound with her tongue and then she held me close to her chest and I could smell sweat under her perfume and I could hear her heartbeat and that felt okay. She took me to her car and I was scared that she was going to drive me back to the river, but she didn’t. She took me to an animal shelter, and they put me on a hard table under a bright light and looked at me all over. They said words like “emaciated” and “flea ridden” and “extreme case of cherry eye” and pet me and snuggled me and gave me a bath where they had to double, triple, quadruple scrub me and they put me in a cage with a clean blanket and watched me. I wasn’t used to being confined, but it was okay, I felt less scared than I’d ever felt before. I was in a room with a lot of other small dogs and cats. We were stacked up on one another in our own cages, and I could hear their soft growls and purrs and yips and yowls and meows and I felt safer than I’d ever felt before.
And then one day we were loaded into a van and driven hours and hours and hours, further and further from mama, to another city where the sounds were different and the same, but the smells were new. For the first time in my life, I was taken into someone’s home. She kept me in my cage in a corner by the door, but she took me for walks and that was good.
And then one day, late in the afternoon, it happened. A man and a woman walked in and I knew at once they were mine, that the woman was my mama in human form. They hugged me and they walked me and they took me home. I finally had a home. I had my own bed, my own dishes, my own toys, and I wasn’t in a cage and I wasn’t in the woods and I wasn’t in a box.
They’ve been with me nearly every day since. They helped me when I was scared of the buses and cars on our walks. They helped me when I was scared to be alone in the apartment, laughing as they watched on camera as I jumped from the floor to the speaker to the hamper to the dresser so I could see out the window and howl and howl until they came back to me. The first time they went on a trip without me, I thought they would never come back and that I’d lost my mama again, but then they did and I almost jumped out the window, I was so relieved.
They took me on trips and gave me treats and love and still sometimes I was afraid because the world is a big place, so they got me a friend and when she’s next to me, I don’t feel so scared. Sometimes I follow my mama from room to room. She always has to be within sight, I never want to lose my mama again. Then there was a time that her belly was growing and I could smell and hear the new life budding inside and I knew that he was mine too. When they first brought him home, he was okay, didn’t move that much but made righteous noise. And then when he started moving around and exploring our space, he scared me because he was always reaching and grabbing for my ears and tail and snout, but then he learned to be gentle at my mama’s encouragement and I my fear ebbed even more.
Nowadays, I feel like the world isn’t as frightening as I once thought it was, but I still get scared sometimes, especially when I feel that low rumbling in the distance. I can’t hear as well as I used to, but the vibrations are unmistakeable. As the summer storms approach, I am reminded of that first night, alone in the box, and I tremble so much that my teeth chatter and I gasp for air. But then my mama takes me into her arms, and whispers that it’s going to be okay. And we all lay together in the big bed, cozy in a pile, warm and snuggled up in the blankets, just me, my mama, my papa, my boy, my sister, and I am safe and unafraid.
Well written!
That is beautiful! I'm crying.