Just Stuff

Lost Dog

This is a reeeeeally short story I wrote for a task in English.

I apologise if it makes you cry.

Walking home again. I am walking home again. Walking to school. Walking home. Again. Every day. Down the same path. Past the houses. Past the painting on the wall. The little dog, reaching for a love heart on a string. Reaching for Love herself. Reaching for something he can't get. Something that I can't get. "Silly dog," I'll think to myself. "You can't grab Love. Besides, the balloon's not Love."

But that little dog gives me hope that I might be able to find Love, by reaching for it. Stepping out of the shadows. Maybe someday I'll step out, and say hello. She might be surprised. Why am I suddenly being friendly? "Because the dog can't find Love," I'll think. "He's stuck on a wall. So I have to find it for him."

School is the same every day. I'll be bumped in the same places in the hall, pinched in the same places on my arms, ignored the same way as every day. I'll look at her with the same expression of longing, love her with the same amount of unrequited passion. And then, I'll walk home again, down the little path, and maybe speak some quiet words to my little dog.

Today, I say no words. No words for my little dog. No words say easily, "Why am I here?" to a creature that cannot reply.

My parents talk to me constantly.

"How was your day?" they'll ask.

"The same." How could it change? The world doesn't like change. In my room, I'll sit. My parents have started to think that I'm depressed. How little the world notices until it's pointed out to them.

"I'm not depressed," I'll tell them. "What do I have to be depressed about?" They don't know about her. She isn't in my class. she never sees me. She is so far away.

Today, there is a man on my path, by my dog. He is leaning over, shaking a can of black paint. He begins to spray a tag on my little dog. No! My little dog gives me hope, keeps me alive! I walk closer to him, the man with no heart and, with a quivering voice, yell an furious word at him. I run.

The dog will be gone soon. I know that. So today, I will reach for Love. I will talk to her. I will make her see me. In the hall, he and his friends push me again. I fall, and my lip is torn by a passing shoe. Blood cascading into my open hand, I hobble to the sick bay. And she is there. She holds an ice pack to a swollen cheek. I sit and wait.

"Jed." Full stop.

"Eve."

"How?"She gestures to my nose.

"How else?"

She smiles.

"I've barely known you my entire life, Jed."

"Past tense?"

"I know you now I've done it. Now that I've talked to you."

"It doesn't work that way. You aren't shy! I've seen you with your friends!" She grins.

"But that's how I act with my friends."

"So I'm not your friend."

"No." She leans close and whispers in my ear.

"I want to be your friend, Jed." And then she is gone.

My dog is gone. He has disappeared under a cloud of hate, hate of the man with no heart. I speak to him today.

"I reached for Love, little dog. I got Friendship instead. But that's alright. Everything's alright in the end, I suppose. This was your end. That's why it's alright. Thank you, little dog."

And goodbye.