It's been three grueling days since she left. Three days full of pain, sorrow, and week-old carryout. I shuffled to the kitchen and peer into the fridge only to find three cans of BudLite and a carton of old Mushu pork. I watched the Chinese characters rotate countless times as my pitiful dinner is reheated by the microwave, and I returned to the dark green couch with my meal in-hand.
The Pacers were down by twenty in the fourth quarter, and I couldn't bear to watch anymore. I threw the remote at the bright screen and everything suddenly became dark. The only light in the house came from the flashing red light on the answering machine. Three messages from co-workers and one from my boss asking about my absence at the plant. It was only 9:30, but I decided to go to bed early since the television was broken.
The hours slowly ticked by, and my pillow muffled the faint sound of crying. Three hours passed before I finally fell asleep, and the light of the morning arrived earlier than I preferred. I forced myself into the shower and into my work uniform, so I could return to my station at the plant. As I opened the rusty door to my brown pickup I noticed a yellow sweater that Sarah left in the passenger seat. Rather than disposing of the garment, I decided to walk the two miles to the waste management facility. The cool fall breeze felt great passing through my hair, and I noticed a dog to my left. I had driven by this same blue house every morning my drive to work, but this time the house seemed different, and I stopped to take in my surroundings. I focused my attention on the brown dog paced back and forth along the fence of its kennel and unsuccessfully searched for a weak spot in the chain link fence. The dog was trapped with...
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...y from the main library and I parked my truck in an empty lot across the street. I spent the night waiting outside her building, and I watched her emerge in a blue hoodie around 6:30 the next morning. She was wearing headphones when I approached her in the parking lot and I quickly explained that my dog was ill, and that I need her help. My voice was shaking because I realized that my months of planning were coming to an end, and she followed me back to my brown truck. Once she was in the passenger seat, I blindfolded her and tied her up. She thrashed around in the seat, but she was unable to free herself from the ropes. I rushed her home, and I threw her into the recently completed shed.
I could hardly control the rush of joy that washed over me after I realized that my brilliant plan was finally complete, and my months of pain and loneliness were over forever.
...om her mother and transported to a pet store where she was locked in a cage until she was purchased by my friend Hailey. I want you to think about her excitement to have a home and Hailey’s excitement to have a new pet to love. Now I want you to think about Hailey receiving the devastating news that her puppy had to be euthanized and Daisy’s fear as she was taken from her owner’s hands and put to death.
cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying...
The blocks of concrete sidewalk in between two rusty, red brick buildings prickle my skin. I lay out my piece of brown corrugated cardboard and am comforted by its smoothness. It provides insulation on a breezy summer night. I curl up, cramped, in the fetal position; my limbs grow limp as my eyelids weigh down over two chocolate eyes. I can feel my fuzzy black dreadlocks falling down the nape of my neck and into the collar of my thin cotton t-shirt. I pull my white tube socks up to my knees with the help of my toes; only the space between them and the bottom of my shorts is now left uncovered and open to the wind. I deliberately position myself in an attempt to conserve energy before morning comes and invites my stomach to turn into a ferocious growling beast. The storeowner will harp about me finding another stoop by prodding my body with a cobweb-infested broom. I will worry about that tomorrow. For now, I escape into a deep, silent slumber. I begin to dream of another life with a different social setting.
The arrival of winter was well on its way. Colorful leaves had turned to brown and fallen from the branches of the trees. The sky opened to a new brightness with the disappearance of the leaves. As John drove down the country road he was much more aware of all his surroundings. He grew up in this small town and knew he would live there forever. He knew every landmark in this area. This place is where he grew up and experienced many adventures. The new journey of his life was exciting, but then he also had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach of something not right.
A dreadful thing had happened — a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.
11:14 p.m.-I slowly ascend from my small wooden chair, and throw another blank sheet of paper on the already covered desk as I make my way to the door. Almost instantaneously I feel wiped of all energy and for a brief second that small bed, which I often complain of, looks homey and very welcoming. I shrug off the tiredness and sluggishly drag my feet behind me those few brief steps. Eyes blurry from weariness, I focus on a now bare area of my door which had previously been covered by a picture of something that was once funny or memorable, but now I can't seem to remember what it was. Either way, it's gone now and with pathetic intentions of finishing my homework I go to close the door. I take a peek down the hall just to assure myself one final time that there is nothing I would rather be doing and when there is nothing worth investigating, aside from a few laughs a couple rooms down, I continue to shut the door.
Then she looked at me. I thought that she was looking at me for the first time. But then, when she turned around behind the lamp and I kept feeling her slippery and oily look in back of me, over my shoulder, I understood that it was I who was looking at her for the first time. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag on the harsh, strong smoke, before spinning in the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. After that I saw her there, as if she'd been standing beside the lamp looking at me every night. For a few brief minutes that's all we did: look at each other. I looked from the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. She stood, with a long and quiet hand on the lamp, looking at me. I saw her eyelids lighted up as on every night. It was then that I remembered the usual thing, when I said to her: "Eyes of a blue dog." Without taking her hand off the lamp she said to me: "That. We'll never forget that." She left the orbit, sighing: "Eyes of a blue dog. I've written it everywhere."
I slowly trudged up the road towards the farm. The country road was dusty, and quiet except for the occasional passing vehicle. Only the clear, burbling sound of a wren’s birdsong sporadically broke the boredom. A faded sign flapped lethargically against the gate. On it, a big black and white cow stood over the words “Bent Rail Farm”. The sign needed fresh paint, and one of its hinges was broken. Suddenly, the distant roar of an engine shattered the stillness of that Friday afternoon. Big tires speeding over gravel pelted small stones in all directions. The truck stopped in front of the red-brick farmhouse with the green door and shutters. It was the large milking truck that stopped by every Friday afternoon. I leisurely passed by fields of corn, wheat, barley, and strawberries. The fields stretched from the gradient hills to the snowy mountains. The blasting wind blew like a bellowing blizzard. A river cut through the hilly panorama. The river ubiquitously flowed from tranquil to tempestuous water. Raging river rapids rushed recklessly into rocks ricocheting and rebounding relentlessly through this rigorous river. Leaves danced with the wind as I looked around the valley. The sun was trapped by smoky, and soggy clouds.
Not too long ago, Ms. Morris’s beloved dog, Hattie, had 5 puppies. Everyone in town thought the puppies were boring and ugly. Their eyes were closed, made a little movement, and didn’t make any noise. Nobody thought the dogs were cute, and nobody wanted them.
“Come over here, Buddy We are going on an adventure!” Excited she ran after me. It was as if she could actually understand me. I took one final look into my hideout before I shut the door, for wherever I was going or headed, I surely wasn’t going to be returning. Even though I spent most of my time down there being afraid of dying, it was the only safe place I could go and I will miss that place. It had been my home for so long, and probably was where I would have been spending the rest of my short lived life if I hadn’t felt this sense of uneasiness. I sighed deeply, and began shutting the door. “Calm down, Buddy”, I muttered as he was barking at something. He had a tendency to bark at objects and things that actually never existed, so I didn’t think twice about it. However when I turned around, I laid my eyes on something, or rather yet someone.
My father's eyes opened, and he called out for my sister Kelly and I to come to him. In a very serious and sad voice, he told us that he was very sick, and he was going to the Fort Wayne hospital. My mother told Kelly and I to help her pack some things for him, because he was going to be leaving soon. We helped her pack, keeping quiet because we did not want to interrupt the silence that had taken over the room.
The shrill cries of my alarm echo across vermilion painted walls, stirring my consciousness into an aware state. It is precisely eight o’clock on a warm summer Monday; the distant cries of mockingbirds can be heard above the soft whirring of cars passing our genteel residential street. My ears scan the house; it is quiet – barely a sound other than the tinkling of tags as our pets navigate the living room. The still morning air brought realization, with no children running around Mother must have already left for work. Never leaving my lax position I stretch and sigh, it is nice to not have to baby-sit my sister’s kids – my nieces and nephew – but I do miss the mornings where my mother would still kiss me goodbye.
As I arrived at her apartment she didn’t answer the door, I just went in. I walked down the hall way into her bedroom where she had pills and a beer and a list wrote out to make sure this would be her last recipe, a recipe of death. All I could do was yell, “What the hell are you thinking, he is not worth your life!” I started grabbing the pills, putting them back in a container and taking the beer. I hid the pills in my purse and went to get water. I begged with her to drink the water and remind...
“It will be okay,” she had said. My sister never lies, but that day she did, taking a rather large part of me with her, leaving behind an empty shell that searches for a glimpse of her in the busy marketplace. I grasp the shoebox tightly, suddenly coming to a realization. It was never her harbouring hope of a family from the photographs, rather me hoping it would be enough to anchor her to me. I close my tired eyes, vision growing fainter, body becoming paralyzed, and the busy voices of the flea market muting to a dull throb. And slowly I fall, fall into the dark abyss of my mind, memories blurring out the present for the past, until all that remains (of us) is a shoebox filled with photographs.
As I walked I let my eyes close and my feet feel the groove in the gravel. My mind, still asleep, dreamt of breathing. The lining of my father's old coat escaped inside the pockets and caught my fingers, which were numb from the cold. I would have worn gloves but the sun would be unbearable later in the day. The clouds would rise over the mountains and disappear and the birds would slowly become silent as the heat settled in. But for now it was just cold. I tried to warm my neck by breathing down the collar. It smelled like diesel and sweat.