Grantblings

Wednesday Words – Good Dog

Good Dog
By Grant Baciocco

“Don’t go in the field.” Timmy’s mother had told him before he and Maisy had left the house.

“I should have listened.” his brain now said to himself as he held onto the root for dear life.  He had been chasing a rabbit with Maisy and had not seen the sinkhole that had recently appeared next to the giant oak that stood in the middle of the large field behind the farm where he lived with his family.  Luckily, he had been able to get a good grip on a root as he’d fallen and it had stopped his fall.  He hung on for dear life as he looked below him.

The drop was about twenty feet down.  He realized if he did fall he’d probably hit the sides of the wall before the bottom so at least the drop wouldn’t kill him.  It hadn’t killed the rabbit who was down at the bottom of the hole, now starting to hop around and sniff for a way out of the pit herself.  He looked up and he could see the blue sky through the bare branches of the oak.  He was about five feet from the lip of the hole.  His eyes searched frantically for something he could climb up to the edge, as the root he now clung to would only raise him about a foot or two.

Below him, the rabbit started screaming.  Startled, Timmy looked down and saw it was frantically trying to scramble up the slick walls of the sinkhole but kept tumbling back down.  Looking closer he saw something move in the shadows below him.  Seconds later, his mind snapped into focus that there was nothing in the shadows that was moving, the shadows themselves were moving.  A buzzing grew louder in his ears.  Squinting harder he saw at least twenty rattlesnakes squirming all over themselves to cross the expanse at the bottom to the terrified rabbit.  There was a nest at the bottom of the hole.  This is why his mother had warned him against playing in the field.

His grip on the root tightened even more.  Sweat began to form all over his body.  Again he looked up for some way to boost himself to the lip, but there was nothing but slick muddy walls.  The frantic screaming below him grew louder as the snakes attacked the rabbit.  Though he’d told himself not to, he looked down as the snake’s venom finally paralyzed the rabbit, silencing her cries, and they began fighting each other for the right to devour the poor creature.  “At least Maisy didn’t fall in.” he found himself thinking.

“Maisy!”  he said out loud, remembering his dog.  “Maisy!  Maisy!” he called loudly, partially to drown out the sounds of the disgusting feast happening below him.  “Maisy!”

Seconds later the familiar, soft face of his golden retriever appeared over the edge.  She sniffed the air and then caught his eye.

“Good girl Maisy!” Timmy breathed, his body weakening from the grip he was applying to the root above him.  “Maisy, go home girl!  G0 home and get mom!”

Maisy cocked her head as if trying to understand.  Timmy repeated, “Go home girl.  Get Mom!  Bring her back!  Hurry!  Hurry girl!  Go home!”

Maisy couldn’t understand most of the words her friend Timmy was now yelling up at her.  She was a dog and, unlike dogs seen following a multitude of commands on television, she was not too bright.  She leaned he head closer to Timmy to try and understand.  As she did, the smell of a fresh kill filled her nostrils and, for the first time, she saw the carnage happening below Timmy.

“Maisy!” Timmy yelled again, regaining Maisy’s focus, “Go home and get mom!”

Maisy listened intently to him again.

“Go home?” she thought, letting the words circle around in her brain.  She knew these words.  She new where ‘home’ was.  She knew what ‘go’ meant.  “Go home.”  She understood this.  Even though Maisy was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, she was obedient.  So, she went home.

An hour later, Maisy sat on the back porch of the farmhouse and looked out across the field waiting for her friend Timmy to emerge and praise her for being so good.

She had gone home.