My shrill screams of, “Come back here!” turned into pleading yet angry bursts of , “Sonny!” as he disappeared around the corner of some distant townhouses. After waiting for a total of three whole seconds, I started working my way over the field to the nearest edge of the line of homes so that I could head him off as he ran around the complex. As I turned the corner onto the road expecting to see Sonny frolicking with some new-found friend, I swear I heard the theme song to the Twilight Zone. Nothing. In front of me was an empty street with only one open garage door. Listening intently for any sound that could be attributed to a stubborn Rat Terrier (and there are many), I walked towards the solitary open door only to find an old man puttering with some power tools. I debated whether to possible waste some precious minutes asking the man if he’d seen my beautiful, fat, little dog but decided to search the banks of the pond instead. As I turned away, horrible thoughts of the man having dog-napped Sonny and preparing to dismember him with his power tools crept into my ridiculously fertile and warped mind. Mental note: stop watching horror movies!
The fairly steep bank of the pond did not fill me with optimism. Since my invasion by arthritis in ’95, I have been anything but steady on unsteady planes. On the left, the bank rose right up to the townhouse that I had seen Sonny run around minutes before, on the right, the bank tumbled down at a 60º gradient to the muddy remains of the pond after several months of drought. Taking precarious steps while visually searching the area and vocally expressing my displeasure with the situation, Sonny and the world in general, I finally reached a more horizontal area of the bank where I feared less for my physical integrity. With no Sonny in sight, the reality of the situation and its ramifications began to invade my conscious mind. (To be continued tomorrow)
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