A Good Life After All

A Good Life After All

I’m Just going to sit right here on this window seat and I’m not going to make a fuss. I’ll just look out the window and count the cars as they go by or maybe look into the night sky for bats or even look at those mysterious spots of light in the night sky called stars, but I’m not going to get up and pace around the room again that’s for sure. I have to do something to take my mind off of this.

He had been up all night and was alternating between pacing around their big suburban apartment, trying to eat and flirting with the idea of sleep. None of it was working. Right now it was the window routine, again, looking out onto the cool crisp New England night.

Was that her? No, I thought I heard her say something, but no it wasn’t her and even if it was she’d probably be talking to HIM. Oh how did this happen? Everything was going along so well or at least I thought it was. They say you’re the last to know. Well here I am and there she is in the bedroom with HIM.

They had been inseparable for the almost two years since he had come to live with her until this. Everyone said that they looked great together…Maggie and Jimbo. Now he was cast aside. What was going on in that bedroom? How he loved being in that big sleigh bed with her…the smell of her and the smell of the fresh sheets always lulled him into an easy sleep. Yea, sometimes he took up too much room, but that was just a guy thing, not enough reason for this.

Maybe I’ll just walk by the door again and see if I hear anything. Nothing…..the silence was deafening coming from the other side of the shinny oak door. That’s silly…maybe I’ll stretch out on the couch and wait for her here. I want to see what she has to say to me in the morning when she sees my face.

He did. He tried at least to stretch out and try to look comfortable for awhile on the sofa. He let himself think that he might actually fall asleep, but it was not going to happen. He just laid their and looked at the patterns in the wall paper. When that wouldn’t do he wrestled around finding another position and then had a great view of the bedroom door. Staring blankly at her door was not going to help him to sleep or to feel any better.

I saw this coming…

She was treating me differently; I know she was. Last week when we took the walk in the park I sensed things were not the same. The park was always a special place for us. How we enjoyed the long walks along the grassy trails. How we enjoyed those times we’d had getting lost in the deep woods…just the two of us…what a life. She seemed more interested in talking to people in the park than running off with me to one of our secret spots. I should have known then.

THEY COULD AT LEAST MAKE SOME NOISE IN THERE!

I’m going to the kitchen. Maybe chow down on some left over dinner scraps. At least there was dinner for me. I don’t understand. She hasn’t thrown me out and yet she has HIM here. I wonder where he came from. She has a passion for strays. Maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental. I must admit that I had no where to live when I met her and she literally took me in off the streets. I don’t know what would have happened to me without her. I might have died out there….got sick and died. I knew no one and there was no one to turn to and she saved me. Yes I love her. She is my whole world.

It was true…he may have died out there without her intervention. He had breezed into town from parts unknown. Things were not going well for him and then he met her and it was all different…there was hope again…there was life…there was love.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what it means. There might still be a chance. She didn’t throw me out. She’ll be getting up for work soon. Maybe I’ll find out something then. Maybe she’ll give me a hint by the way she treats me. I don’t want to fall asleep. I’m afraid she’ll slip out without me hearing her. I have to stay awake. I’ll just stretch out here on the floor. My back’s been killing me lately. It might be the stress of it all.

He did find sleep of a sort. Morning came and found him dozing half awake on the living room floor. The bedroom door opens. Out comes a beautiful woman in her mid 30’s. She looks like she’s had a sleepless night as well and yet she has a glint in her eye and a smirk on her face. She seems happy like she has some great new adventure in front of her. She gently wakens him.

“Morning Jimbo” she says gently as she rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “I think it’s time you two have met”.

Without a chance for him to protest she took him into the bedroom and he saw his competition straight on and up close for the first time. He had only gotten a glance at him last night and really didn’t get a chance for a full evaluation.

He was a fairly good looking three or four year old cocker spaniel. He seemed very frightened and unsure of himself. It appeared as if he may have been abused.

Now, Jimbo was feeling like a fool. It was more of the sweet loveliness of his owner that had saved his own life that was now rescuing this poor wretched thing. He would need all the love she and Jimbo could give him if he were to recover the calamities of life that had befallen him.

“Jimbo, this is Flash. He’s going to live with us. I hope you’ll be good friends”

She need never ask anything from him nor want for anything for he remembered that he was even sicklier looking than poor Flash when she picked him up off the streets and saved his life. He would do what she wanted.

He was a good dog and she was a good mistress and it was a good life after all


3/21/06