It is finally Friday and somehow i finally feel like I have hit my stride this week. The first half of this week i was just moving slow. It was like the cold and rain locked up my joints like the tin man. Mostly it was just bouts of insomnia and not rust but lack of sleep does make the brain a bit rusty so I think the idea holds. Still I am feeling great today so let’s just dive in. Ready, set, write!
Even as I was writing this I was worried for the dog. I may have to write this just so I know Toby is safe.
Friday, December 16th: He held up one striped sock.
He held up one striped sock. “Dare I ask what happened to the other?” The question seemed to be absorbed by the furniture. It didn’t respond. Jake bend over and looked under the couch. There was nothing and no one there. He tiled his head and looked under each of the chairs in turn. Nope. Toby was not hiding under any of those either.
Jake straightened and walked out of the living room still holding the lone sock. There was no sign of Toby in the hall. Or the spare room, or Jakes bedroom. Worry started to grow as Jake checked each and every room of the house. That Toby might hide after eating the sock was not a surprise. After three vets visits to remove socks from Toby’s innards, not only ad Jake made certain no socks were in any way visible to the sock loving canine, but Toby seemed to feel the weight of his actions.
Jake guessed that f if the socks were an addiction, three intestinal issues were enough to teach even him a lesson. But Toby was nowhere to be found. Worry began to gnaw at him. Had something happened to Toby? He let himself into the back yard and searched the grounds.
“Toby?” he called edging closer to a shadow under the bush. “I’m not mad, I just want to see if you are alright.” He thought for a second and then added. “I have treats. Who wants treats?” Nothing moved in the shadows.
“Walkies? Who wants to go for walkies?” he asked. Jake approached the bush and saw that it was just a shadow under the bush. Relieved that the nonmoving thing wasn’t his dog, Jake looked around. There. He spotted it. It was a hole dug at the very edge of the fence. It wasn’t much of a hole but he imagined the dog could have easily slithered his way into it and out of the other side. There were times when he swore Toby was part snake as there was simply no other explanation for how he managed to slip through such tight spaces.
“I guess he went on Walkies without me.” Jake left the yard and went through the house. He double checked the rooms as he passed just to make sure he hadn’t somehow missed Toby. He hadn’t. The dog was still gone. Still clutching the striped sock, Jake went out of the front door, locking it behind himself. Back on the side walk he tried to imagine where his dog, suddenly free of the confines of the house and yard would go. He walked down the side walk, periodically calling, “Toby”. He hoped that he would hear a familiar bark and the sounds of nails on concrete as his dog returned, but there was nothing. Then as he lifted his hands to his mouth cupping them around to help his voice go further, Jake looked at the sock. A thought flickered through.
He didn’t own any striped socks. Yet the sock was in his living room. There was only one person he knew who routinely wore striped socks. “Oh no,” he said. Confident he knew where his dog was, Jake began to run.
Ten til Midnight 