12 Days of Fiction 2016 -1: Not Alone
I love the beach. I love the beach because you love the beach. I’ve never seen you happier than when you’re by the sea, letting the breeze tangle your hair and the water lick your feet. Spiro and Gyra love it too. They’re running like mad, chasing each other, stealing that stick from one another. They don’t even come to beg us to throw it away. They don’t need us!
Your laugh when looking at them is exhilarating. I bask in it. It warms my soul more than the sun warms my body. If there was no sun, somehow I could survive. If there was no you… I could not.
You look at me. You ask me why I look so serious. I tell you the truth. I can never do otherwise. You tell me I’m a little silly for thinking of those things, and then Spiro and Gyra arrive and run me over, barking and leaping and making me wet.
And you laugh.
And I love it.
The walk back home is as wonderful as ever. The dogs run before us, sniffing everything as is their wont. You just look splendid in the late afternoon light. But you tell me I always think you look splendid no matter what. What can I say, you’re right.
The path is quiet and we meet no one. We seldom do. It’s one of the reasons why we came to live here: we’re almost alone. We don’t need anyone else. Just you and me. And the dogs. And the cats you feed, who have adopted us. Though I think all they ever do is come to the kitchen window and meow until food appears, then they just eat and leave. You say they fear the dogs, and that’s why you put Spiro and Gyra away when you feed the cats. I think they’re too clever and you just like to spoil them.
At home, I suggest I’ll cook some tuna spaghetti, and you want me to open a bottle of wine while you take a shower. I should be the one taking the shower, since I’m the one the dogs have made a mess of, but you’re already upstairs before I can even protest.
I give Spiro and Gyra their food, then it’s washing my hands and setting out for cooking. I’ll have my shower later.
The dogs hear it first. I notice because they stop eating and look away. Spiro starts grumbling and Gyra follows, then they start barking as they run towards the door.
I hear the sirens and see the lights. The police? What’s going on? I hear someone speaking on a megaphone, but the commotion the dogs cause doesn’t let me understand the words. I try to put them away when the front door bursts in. Cops pour in, weapons ready, shouting at me to throw my hands up and kneel.
Where are you? What’s going on?
++++
“Have you made the call, Lee?” Johnson said.
“Yes,” Lee said. “Someone from the Animal Refuge will be here in fifteen minutes, tops. But if it takes them much longer I’ll call again and bring these two guys home. They’re good dogs. They were just afraid of us.” She bent down and patted Spiro and Gyra.
“They’ll be lucky if they stay with you,” Johnson said. He scratched his head. “I hate using those helmets.”
“They can save your life,” she said. Johnson gestured in peace. He knew. “What about the suspect?”
Johnson pointed at the ambulance. They had just closed its doors and the driver had just started the lights.
“The wife’s body was in their bedroom,” he said. “The dogs must be damn well trained, is all I say. Doc said she’d been dead for at least three months. No evident signs of violence.”
“So she just died?”
“Yup. Possible stroke. But the guy’s mind just broke down. He insisted they’d all just been to the beach. The two of them and the dogs. He just couldn’t cope with her death, said the doc, and he kept going on as if she was alive.”
“Damn.” Lee patted the dogs. “Poor sod.”
“Yeah,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t want to go through that.”
