By Matthew Spence
Jason was worried when Dog went missing one late Friday
afternoon. Dog had gone off roaming before, but it wasn’t like him to be gone
so late after dinner time. Even so, his parents weren’t all that concerned at
first.
“He’ll come home when
he’s ready, and not before,” Dad said.
“Try not to worry,”
Mom added. “If he’s not home by tomorrow morning, we’ll go out and look for
him.”
Jason nodded, feeling relieved as he ate his dinner and looked
out through the patio door, waiting for Dog to come home. He’d come when he was
hungry enough, Jason thought, sometimes with a neighbor who’d been kind enough
to bring him home. Dog liked people, but that was part of the problem, and one
of the reasons why Jason tried not to let Dog out of his sight too often.
Jason waited, and when he went to bed that night he lay awake in
bed and looked out at the moon through his bedroom window, hoping for Dog’s
safe return.
The next morning, Dog still hadn’t come home yet. Jason and his
parents went out looking for him as they had promised to do. It was a Saturday,
so most of their neighbors were home, but none of them had seen Dog. Jason
thanked them and kept looking, from the edge of the woods that stood outside
their neighborhood to the local supermarket parking lot where some lost dogs
wound up, but there was no trace of Dog anywhere.
By the end of the weekend Jason was really worried. Dog was
nearly ten years old, and had been with them since Jason was five. “What if
he’s found somebody that he likes better than us?” Jason asked.
“He’ll come back,” Dad insisted. “Don’t worry. Dog has always
found his way home before…”
The days passed. It was late summer, and the feeling of fall was
already in the air. Jason’s parents put ads in the local paper, and on their
Facebook pages, asking if anyone had seen Dog. As the days turned into weeks,
Jason became increasingly frustrated, but still hoped for Dog’s return. He
started a new grade in school, and sort of drifted through his classes, still thinking
about Dog. As the seasons turned, Jason kept track of how long Dog had been
gone, as the trees turned bare and winter approached. Halloween came, and
Thanksgiving and Christmas, but without Dog they didn’t seem to have as much
meaning. By the time winter had begun to pass, Jason really began to wonder if
Dog had indeed found a new home, somewhere halfway across the country. The idea
made him depressed, and more withdrawn as time passed.
School came and went, and more seasons as Jason got older. He went into Junior
High, then high school, but by then his grades were suffering to the point
where he was falling behind. He had to be put in remedial classes, and started
trying “small” amounts of pot, pills, and booze. When he was seventeen he found
himself on the streets, dividing his time between various shelters and hustling
for drug money. Even so, Jason would still sometimes look for Dog in the old
places he knew, even asking some of his old neighbors, although by then some of
them had moved away as his old neighborhood began to decline. His parents found
him at one of the shelters and were able to get Jason into rehab, where he was
able to focus his attention. Jason was able to get a part-time job, then an
internship as he completed his GED. He never stopped thinking about Dog,
though, even though he knew by then that Dog had was probably gone, having
lived out his natural lifespan…
More years passed. Jason now had a house of his own, and a
patient, understanding wife. They had two kids of their own together, a boy and
a girl, and the boy reminded Jason much of himself, to the point where his wife
suggested getting him a pet.
“We should wait,” Jason said. “Maybe he’ll find one on his own.
One that got lost…”
…And might have been
trying to find his way home, he said to himself.
About the author: Matthew Spence was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
His work has most recently appeared in Tabi's Flash Tuesdays.
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