He sits at the foot of my bed

His words a river

Filling the empty lake

Of his daughter’s soul.

Those days when my spine quivers,

He becomes the mountain at my back.

When I worry myself into a knot,

He is the quiet evening soothing me.

On my worst days, he is

Laurel & Hardy and Abbot & Costello.

On days when my hope lags,

he shows me his, a wildflower

hiding under the leaves.

Why use so many words

When one will do?

Father.

Alli couldn’t find a single person. She had been searching her neighborhood since 6am when she awoke and her husband and children were gone. Just gone. Charlie and Abby’s blankets on the bed were arranged exactly the same as when she had tucked them in last night. It was like they had vanished into thin air and the blankets had collapsed around the empty space.

She sat down on the curb and put her head in her hands and sobbed some more. This must be a nightmare. It must. She just had to last until she woke up.

“Why are you crying?” a girl’s voice asked. The girl looked about nine years old. She had long brown hair and brown eyes and wore blue shorts and a matching tank top.

Alli grabbed her hands. “Where are your parents? Do you know if anyone else is around?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own – it was high pitched and hysterical.

“There are supposed to be other people around, like you.”

“What?” Alli said, confused. That wasn’t any of the possible answers she had anticipated.

“I wished all the people away, but I got lonely so I wished back some nice people. You must be one.”

Alli didn’t know what to say. This must be a dream. “Can you wish my family back?”

“I don’t know. Are they nice?”

“Of course they are!”

“Well, you would think so.”

“I’m nice and I love them, so they must be nice. Maybe the wish didn’t work quite right?”

“That does happen sometimes. Ok, I’ll wish them back, but if I don’t like them, they can’t stay.”

“Sure,” Alli said. This was a dream, so why not just agree?

Tom was standing in front of her with his back to her. Just like that. Not there, then suddenly there. He turned around and saw her. “Alli! What the hell? Am I sleep walking?”

“Only if we all are,” Charlie her fourteen-year-old said from behind her.

She whirled and saw Charlie and Abby standing there. She grabbed them both in a huge hug and didn’t let go.

“Oh God,” she said weeping, this time with relief and joy.

The four of them gathered together in a cluster, with Tom in front taking a protective stance. “Who might you be?” he asked.

“Calie.”

Tom looked around and saw the absence of cars and planes in the sky, and noted the complete lack of noises from human activity. “This is a dream,” he said.

The girl looked at Charlie and Abbey and said, “Do you love your parents?”

Abby, age 11, slid behind her brother and didn’t answer. Charlie said, “Yeah, I guess.”

The girl shook her head.

“Charlie,” Alli said, “Be honest. Tell her exactly how you feel about dad and I. This is your chance to let it all out.”

Charlie looked at her then at the girl and nodded. “I do love them. I don’t love their rules. The rules are stupid, and they make me angry.” He took a deep breath and continued. “I like dad better. Mom is always keeping me from doing things.”

He looked worried and Alli said, “Good job. Anything more to add?”

He shook his head.

“What about you,” the girl asked looking at Abby.

Abby nodded.

“I don’t understand.”

“That means,” Charlie said translating for Abby, “That she loves them. She won’t talk to you. She doesn’t know you.”

“And you love them?” she asked Tom and Alli.

“Of course,” Tom said.

“They are my breath, I would die without them.”

“That’s a yes?”

“Yes!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What?” they all said at the same time.

“I don’t love my parents and they hate me. You’re all lying and telling me what you think I want to hear just so you can be alive. I want people that tell me the truth. You can all go away.”

Jordan walked into the kitchen to feed the dogs. Lady, a red mutt the color of an Irish Setter, but thank you no, not an Irish Setter, was lounging under the dining room table. Misty, the Brittany, had jumped up onto the bench seat in the bay window and was looking at something while her stubby tail was wagging her butt.

He opened the cabinet under the counter holding the dog food and supplies an inch and ran his finger along the inner edge of the door until it hit the child-safety latch. He released it. At the sound, Misty launched herself from the bench and in two bounds was in the kitchen dancing around his feet. He scooped kibble into one bowl, pushed Misty out of the cabinet, and scooped kibble into a second bowl. He pushed Misty out of the cabinet again and closed it and checked to make sure it had locked. He had had to put the latch on because Misty the Wonder Dog had figured out how to claw the door open and had dragged an entire new twenty-pound bag of food into the living room and tried to open it. She had been caught before she had started her feast, much to her disappointment.

“Lady,” he called holding her bowl, but not yet placing it on the floor. She elegantly walked into the kitchen long hair flowing and silky tail held high. When Misty bounced into her, she raised her lip slightly. Misty planted her butt on the kitchen floor, tail still going.

Jordan put Lady’s bowl down and said, “There you go Queen Under the Table.” She precisely ate one piece of kibble at a time. He walked to the other side of the kitchen and put Misty’s bowl down. She shoved her snout in and ate. Then she was done. Criminy, did she just swallow it whole?

Misty hovered around Lady, and stayed exactly three feet away. Jordan hadn’t taught her that. Lady had. Misty burped and chewed something and swallowed. Yep, she ate it whole.

Jordan made himself a sandwich and ate. Lady finished her food. When she was out of the kitchen, Misty attacked her bowl, found no food and went straight to the cabinet and pawed it open one inch. She tried to power-nose it open further, but it wouldn’t budge. There was a great deal of snuffling, then a sudden charge to the living room and a leap onto the bench.

Jordan’s dad had just moved into a new house, and he had promised he would come over to visit this afternoon. Dad had a fenced yard, which he did not. He was looking forward to letting the dogs loose. It would be a new experience for them.

He went straight to his dad’s backyard and let the dogs off the leash. Misty ran around the perimeter and Lady settled comfortably in the shade of the lone maple tree. Dad came out the back door. “Oh, they’re going to love this,” dad said.

“Yep,” Jordan said.

“Come on in and I’ll give you the tour.”

At the end of the tour they were at the back door again and dad said, “Hey the neighbor has a new dog.”

Jordan looked and said, “Oh Christ, that’s not a new dog!” He grabbed Misty’s leash, hopped the fence, apologized profusely to the cursing neighbor as he tried to catch his dog. He finally got Wonder Dog on-leash and walked her back to the yard.

“How’d she do that?” dad asked.

“She jumped the fence.”

“Bullshit! That’s a four-foot chain-link. No way she jumped it. Must be a hole somewhere.” They inspected the fence closely. No hole.

Jordan let Misty off-leash and walked into the house with his dad. They both stood at the door and watched. There was no hole, nor did she jump the fence. She went to the corner and put her front paws as high as she could reach, then tilted her head and pressed it against the other side of the fence that was at a ninety-degree angle to the fence she was currently hanging on. Then she moved her front paws up and hooked her back paws onto the fence. She moved her head up and started the whole process again and was over the fence and in the neighbor’s yard again. Lady watched the entire process from her spot in the shade.

“I’ll be damned,” dad said.

“Here we go again.”

When Jordan returned to the yard, dad was waiting. He held the end of a long chain-link leash and the other end was secured around the trunk of the maple. Jordan walked Wonder Dog over and dad clipped on the leash. They didn’t say a word. Lady still lounged in the shade of the maple calmly watching the entire thing.

-Names and details have been changed slightly to protect the goofy.

#dogs#humor#animals

Alice got her favorite blocks from the shelves in her closet and dumped them on the pink shag carpet of her bedroom floor. The blocks had beautiful painted pictures of wild horses once you put all the blocks together correctly.

She put the first block down. “I hate you,” she thought. She put a matching block next to it. “I really hate you,” she thought. She put a third block next to the first two. The picture so far showed rolling green hills, but no horses. “I really, really hate you,” she thought. The fourth block started the second row.

“I’m going to hell,” she thought. “I’m the only person alive that hates their grandmother.” She put a second block in the second row. The scene now had a chestnut mare’s head. “I hate you and I’m going to hell for it.”

“Alice, lunch time!” her mother called. She carefully walked out into the hallway and walked along the wall to avoid the squeaky floorboards. Just before her grandmother’s room, she paused, held her breath and darted past the threshold. As she flashed by, she noticed that her grandmother was not there. She released her breath in relief and rounded the corner into the kitchen, shouting “Mom-“ but swallowed the rest of her sentence when she saw her grandmother already sitting at the kitchen table. She turned abruptly, but wasn’t fast enough. Her grandmother’s arm shot out and latched onto her wrist. Grandma’s hand was like a bird’s claw, but her grasp was unbreakable. She pulled Alice toward her and hugged her until it felt like her ribs cracked. Alice leaned back, trying to avoid the kiss that was coming. She failed. Grandma planted a wet one on her cheek and tickled Alice with her whiskers. The smell of moth balls was overwhelming. Alice squirmed. Grandma finally released her. Alice ran to her chair and started wolfing down her spaghettios. Her older brother, Ricky, sauntered in and walked past Grandma and plopped down in his seat and started in on his spaghettios.

Mom cleaned up the mess from making lunch and grandma ate her liverwurst sandwich.

“Kathy, turn on the TV,” Grandma said.

“Not while the children are eating.”

“It’s just lunch. I’m sure Alice would like to watch cartoons. Turn it on now.”

“No.”

“Cartoons aren’t on now,” Ricky said.

“I’m done,” Alice said drinking down the rest of her spaghettios from the bowl and jumping up and running to her room.

“Don’t you tell me no,” she could hear Grandma say even with her bedroom door closed.

“They are my children, and I will take care of them according to my rules.” Alice heard Ricky run for the front door and the slam as he made it outside.

“You’re a bitch,” Grandma screamed. “You don’t have an ounce of motherly love in you! You’re cold and rigid and only care about rules!”

She heard the back door open and her mother walk out onto the patio.

Grandma still sat in the kitchen. Crash! Alice and her mother ran to the kitchen. There was Grandma, on her back on the floor with her sandwich being eaten by the dog and her milk splattered across almost the entire kitchen. Again.

Mom helped her up. “See what you’ve done?” Grandma said. “You don’t care about me at all. You left a helpless old woman alone. I’m sure I broke something. I think you should take me to the hospital.” Instead, Mom helped Grandma walk to her room and turned on Grandma’s portable TV. The Price is Right was just starting.

Alice started wiping up the milk. “I hate you,” she thought. “I wish you were dead. And I’m going to hell because of you. Hating your grandmother must be the worst sin of all. There’s no way I can tell a priest about this! I’ll never be forgiven for my sin! I hate you! I really, really hate you!”

#secrect#hate#love