late the next morning

i was stumbling around, trying to attend to the needs of the dogs and cats still present in my life when i heard children.  then i didn't.  did.  didn't.

at the garage door, the sound of a big wheel and a kid voice.  briefly.   out in the driveway, nothing.  no one.  i assumed i was hearing noise from next door so walked in that direction, stopping, listening.  nothing.  the neighborhood was still and eerily quiet in every direction.  oh dear God, i said to myself.  i'm hallucinating.  i stood, frozen, waiting for some apocalyptic vision. i stood because i was afraid to move...afraid i'd disturb whatever it was in the universe that was playing with me and start it happening again.  so that's what i was doing, standing catatonically still, when a young woman came around the corner from my front door.  a second later she was followed by two little boys, mounted up on big wheels.  and she was carrying in her arms a little brown dog.

i don't know how long it took me to figure out that they were real, that i needed to speak, that a miracle was happening right there in front of me, but eventually i came back to life - folded over and cried, some more, before i could actually speak.

from the door of his kennel to the place where he was found this morning is a very long way for a puppy to go...a quarter mile or more.  it's also a strangely straight line from here to there.  you'd think a puppy would wander, follow a butterfly or some irresistible aroma...not make a bee-line down the road like the fedex man.  all that to say, i'm not convinced that the 3 fishy people down by the pond didn't have something to do with this whole thing.

as for little choc, he shows no signs of distress of any kind.  he's not hungry or cowered or shivery.  he's, if anything, cuter than ever, sweet as always, bouncy and energetic.  thanks be to heaven.