Wise Dogs

Frogs croaking from the pond down the dusty road. The porch creaks for no good reason. Hot, dry air rustles through bull rushes.

Amazing how sharp her hearing is. She can hear every tiny living creature, a bee buzzing in the red, yellow, pink, wild flowers that fill the ditches all along that road. Road of memory, she thinks.

Her ankles dusty, her knees scraped from climbing the oak tree —her favourite branch—a secret place—her eyes looking out at the farms below— hidden safe. She watches her father in and out of the barn. His overalls hanging off his lanky body, arms strong, hair dark, too long. He brushes it back impatiently from his eyes and lifts a bale of hay as if it was a feather or a single leaf or her—his hands tight under her arms and up, up swinging so high and dizzy. His laugh. You don't hear it often and so it's like strange music. “Again!” she shouts. “No little frog. That's enough— time for lunch.” 

The smell of warm biscuits. Wolf’s breath on her knees under the table. His wet nose pushes her leg. Her hand full of biscuit sliding down like a whisper. His tongue leaves a wet slurp across her fingers. Her mom gives her a warning glance across the table. How does she know? 

“I've got eyes in the back of my head, little one. Don't you forget it.” 

But now she just looks— her eyebrow up the smallest amount— it's enough. And she smiles, her head tilted down, smelling the stew pot.

A perfect life, she thinks. Alone now— folks long gone. Wolf long gone. The day he wandered off into the deeper part of the woods where she was forbidden to go. “Why did he go?” she wailed— her breath ragged, her heart like a river stone. “It's okay little frog. That's what wise dogs do sometimes. He knew his life was done and so he went to make himself comfortable under a tree. It's a dog's way.” 

Yes. A dog's way. But the pain was as big as the sky. Even sitting up in her tree didn't help. She felt the hurt. It pushed into her. It covered her like an old rough blanket. 

Now she can look out at that tree, her old friend. So many years. No more climbing. No more dreams of storybook romance or wild adventures atop an elephant in Africa. No more. Just the memories— some clear as a glass held up to the light. All her loves, like a movie flickering too fast—light, dark, light, dark—her feet higher and higher off the ground. Her gaze down on ordinary life. Her father's arms holding her up like an offering,  his laugh, like a circus act. She sips the last of her tea, smiles and walks slowly but surely, into the deep woods.