My boy

My boy didn’t smell right. Usually, he smelled like the dirt we rolled in sometimes when we played ball in back of the house, or like the trees in the forest down the road. Or whatever he was eating and sneaking to me under the table. But, he hadn’t wanted to run and play with me for a while, though. And he was only eating some water my lady fed him from a bowl. He used to run everywhere, with me chasing circles around his feet. Then, he stopped getting out of bed.

They took him away one day. He was gone a long time. I went to the window and the garden gate so many times before they finally brought him home. My man was carrying him and my lady kept saying, “down” when I tried to jump up to lick my boy’s face. When they put him in our bed, I leapt up and that’s when the smell hit me. What was going on with my boy? I even had to snuggle my head under his hand, ’cause he couldn’t lift it. He smiled a little as he said, “hey, Zeus, hey buddy,” but then he just closed his eyes and went to sleep. So, I did, too.

We did a lot of sleeping. Every now and again, I would wake up to see my lady or my man next to the bed watching us, water leaking from their eyes. They would stroke me and say, “good boy, Zeus.” I don’t know why since I was just lying there with my boy, sleeping, waiting for him to smell right again. But I would wag my tail a little and lick the water on their faces.

Then one day, he no longer smelled funny. He didn’t smell at all. And somehow, I knew that my boy wouldn’t be rolling in the dirt with me anymore.