Netflix

[one]

P O P P Y   W E N T  M I S S I N G  for the third time that month and it was beginning to give Leigh the suspicion that her pet labrador hated her. It was hard for Leigh to be sure if her thoughts were correct, but so far, the evidence of the numerous amount pee stains on the carpet in her bedroom and the lack of joy that was usually shown in the wag of Poppy’s tail, seemed to prove it to be.

She had wondered countless of times why Poppy would randomly take a walk out the front door of her apartment when it was freezing outside? Though Leigh couldn’t receive an answer as to why it kept on happening for the soul reason of her inability of understanding the language of Woof.

Leigh sighed and rubbed her forehead while she stared at Poppy’s upturned bowls of food and water that littered the floor and left an odor of kibble and horrid meat that revolted Leigh, and left her stomach churning with disgust. She remained still for a minute before she scrambled away from the smell and covered her nose with two pieces of tissue paper.

The kitchen was a mess, especially since it was Poppy’s favourite spot in the whole apartment - other than her own bed, of course -  to sit and do her usual doggy chowing business. The floor looked like the gameboard of a very rough game of Lava Jump, but instead of couches to jump onto, it was large pieces of kibble and thrown out dog food.

The water was worse. It seemed to have mixed itself with something Leigh was worried to identify,and left a greasy, yellow colour that soaked up the pieces of Poppy’s left over food. Leigh gagged at the smell and tightened her hold on the tissue that covered her mouth and nose.

She wondered if Poppy ever understood Leigh when she tried to discipline her. Telling her not to pee on the floor unless it was in the litter, a fire hydrant (it took Leigh a while for her to get used to that while walking Poppy around her apartment block)  or even on the grass at the park. Or telling her not to run away, again.

Even though Leigh had raised Poppy since she was a puppy, and gave her the ridiculous name that was an alternative way of calling her Labrador puppy; Puppy.Puppy equals Poppy, simple logic.

Her friends told her it would be idiotic to name a puppy what it is, because when it grows older it wouldn’t be a puppy anymore, which would seem utterly odd and strange to anyone who would hear Leigh yell after the grown up version of Poppy.

With a strangled sigh, Leigh picked up the two bowls and placed them on the counter of the island in her kitchen, and rushed to the front door to find any pair of footwear in the shoe rack that leaned beside the entrance. Once she made her choice and found her worn out Vans and had slipped them on, she dragged her tired butt out of her apartment and into the chilly hallway of Building 2B.

With a loud clang and a grumble, Leigh found Lacey Williams taking out the trash as she passed by. Her neighbour chuckled at Leigh’s expression, and Leigh found herself receiving an amused smile from the college student in return for the small wave she always sent her. Once outside the building she shivered and cussed the sky for opening up and letting fluffs and puffs of the freezing cottony substance, also known as snow.

“Poppy?” Leigh yelled. She bounded down the steps of her apartment building and cupped her mouth. “Poppy!”

There wasn’t a reply, but Leigh was expecting that. Poppy had done the same thing twice before and it was all but a relaxing job to do of finding her.

She passed a few pedestrians the roomed around the streets and called out to the ones she recognized from either school or her daily walks with Poppy and Lacey’s dog - Ryder. She asked them if they had seen where Poppy might have run off to, yet everytime time she even got close enough to ask, their immediate reply was never a good one. Which left Leigh with the choices of going to the park, the pond, or the track field that was twenty blocks away.

Leigh hoped, for the love of donuts, that Poppy wasn’t at the track field. She was already shivering in her pajama shorts and cartoon designed t-shirt , hugging herself to keep some warmth, Leigh shook her head ruefully at her horrid choice of clothing, especially in the middle of the wondrous month that is November.

She received odd glances and stares as she ran past them to the nearby park at Jefferson Street, gathering even more eyes of curious people who milled around with steaming Starbucks or Costa coffee cups in their gloved hands.

Leigh had to prevent herself from tackling them down and stealing their coffee in the hopes of it being hot chocolate but in her mind she knew the people in this city simply did not just drink hot chocolate in the morning.

It was a sort of forbidden rule to break to the people who lived in Brighton.

Another forbidden rule to break should be that no one should ever,- even if they were in a dire need of any sort of emergency- ever leave their home and/or apartment in their pajamas. Particularly in time of Winter, when it was snowing.

“Poppy! For the love of my toes, where are you?” Leigh knew asking her dog to reply to a question would be impossible. Mainly because Poppy could not speak, and her bark would not be loud enough for Leigh to even hear it. Especially with the city noise of the morning surrounding her in a wizz.

Leigh bumped into people who moved in the opposite direction she was heading towards. While she waited at the traffic light cross, with another dozen or so men and women surrounding her they somewhat radiating warmth off of them and heating her cold frame. Once the outline of a person walking glowed green the crowd moved towards the other side, a few bumped into Leigh as they hurried off impatiently.

She bit back her tongue and prohibited herself from yelling after them with profanities, and allowed the idea of finding Poppy fill her mind. It was the sole reason as to why she was freezing her butt in the middle of November, wearing nothing but shorts and a thin t-shirt.

That and the fact that her Gran would slaughter her if she found out that Poppy went missing and that Leigh didn’t find her, at the thought Leigh froze up with dread. Her Gran would flat out murder her with a walking stick, and being sawed to death, very slowly, by a blump object was as appealing to Leigh as taking a walk through a bed of slimy, little snails.

With the horrid thought in mind, she hurried past people with dirty looks and people with gum being shoved into their mouths and being chewed with an obnoxious loudness. Those are the people she rolled her eyes at once they eyed her curiously.

She looked down at the blurring pavement as her walk turned to a jog, and from a jog to a ran. She raced towards the park she’d grown used to over the years of living in the area, but never, never before had she ran there without Poppy being the one to drag her forcefully.

“Poppy,” Leigh growled under her breath once she reached the steps of the Green Haven Park. “No kibble for you tonight.”

***

unedited.

chapter one of Netflix! aha, I hope you enjoyed it, if you did please leave a comment with your thoughts :p Idk where the hell is Brighton, or if it's a real place, it popped into my mind and yeah.

dedicated to _insane for letting me adopt this idea :) I sort of tweaked it a little...okay, a lot :p