Observations
The First: every time I walk into our master bedroom from the hallway, I get a brief emotional jolt because Spenser, the Naugahyde Dog, is sitting on our bed in front of our two decorator pillows, looking toward the door. What is so curious is that my reason knows he is there and that he is not a real dog, but the emotions are always tricked. He looks like a real dog for a microsecond, and my emotions buy it every time. Every time. There is not once that I have walked in and not felt it.
Second: two nights ago deep into the overnight, as the meteorologists love to say, probably about four a.m., just after I came into the bedroom, Mary happened to get up and go into the hall, and there moving toward her along the floor in the dim night light, was an eerie long blanket. Simon had followed me to the bedroom, but when he jumped down from the sofa, the blanket stayed on him and came with him. That has happened before, but the blanket usually falls off or gets shaken off very quickly.
Third: I have been at the table too long today, and there is an incredible pain in the back of my neck on the right side. It is, I believe, time to descend to the street and walk a mile for my records. Lately, 33 minutes out there is the best time for just over a mile. The developers had nicely made the subdivision street a curving half mile long exactly. So from our house back to the cul de sac to the end of the street and home is also a half mile; two of those are a mile. I add length by going around the cul de sac circle several times though it must appear to the neighbors that I am simply going in circles with my life. And so I am.
Fourth: back from my walk, having achieved a new distance: one and a half miles plus today, 45:15. Each circle at the cul de sac also adds another minute to the time. I am nothing if not thorough. Probably. In any case, as I was walking down the hill toward the cul de sac I alertly, watchfully, may I say even mindfully, noticed the water, in an open section of the space between the paved street and the curb, 3 inches deep perhaps and 6 wide, running under the snow, seemingly. I truly enjoy watching running water. So, after a bit, I cleared a small area with my cane halfway down the hill to see whether the water was truly running under the snow and downhill. Oh, it was; I could see it moving, and when I reached the bottom of the hill and another open space, there the water was again, moving quickly and sparkling in the intense sunlight from the southwest. Delightful. The nice thing about being poor and having a dilapidated body is that it doesn't take much to amuse and interest me, indoors and especially out.
Fifth: the other night, about a week ago now, I let the dogs out into the back yard around midnight, as usual. Only this time I could hear, after a short while, Dexter doing the Beagle Bellow which usually spells trouble for something. This time it was a possum again. Unfortunately they had it trapped on the ground. I have no boots and the snow was deep; Mary has boots, she went. The rescue, she thought, went smoothly, for Dexter came and the other three dogs meekly, she said, followed him to the deck, whereupon she discovered the reason for the procession. Dexter had the zonked out possum in his mouth, and apparently each dog wanted a piece of the action. Mary caught and handed me Schuster who was awash in mud. The only thing I could do was take him to the bathtub, unhappy dog that he was.
Mary meanwhile managed to get Dexter to drop the hapless possum, possibly Possibly, on the deck. We got everyone in. Simon, the killer, wasn't quite as muddy as Schuster, but he got a bath too. I went back out to inspect the possum. It was bleeding badly from its tail where someone had bitten off the tip! But it appeared to be breathing, and it was still comatose. I suspected that it could have serious internal injuries if Dexter had bitten down hard. I put a slice of bread down by its head and went back in the house and watched for a bit. He or she stayed still.
About an hour later I came back to the door and the possum was gone. Of course the creature was not hard to track, as our weather people love to say, "tracking the possum's slightly bloody trail at one o'clock a.m., moving south across the deck, taking refuge under something on the deck and against the house." It had eaten most of the bread before it moved, a very good sign. I shined my powerful new Lowe's flashlight at where the blood pointed, and there he was, snuggled against the house. While I had the light on him, he turned his head enough to look at me, and in his eyes, I seemed to see a glimmer of recognition and a glance of pain: why did this happen? I turned the light off and went back in the house. Mary took him some Cracker Barrel corn bread. In the morning he was gone, the corn bread was mostly eaten, but he was gone, mending I hope.
The dogs went wild for the first two days, though everything seems to have calmed down now and there have been no new incidents. One can only wonder why a wild creature would choose to nest in a backyard belonging to four rowdy dogs, but he did, and paid for it with a tail snip, among other things. At least if he shows up again he should be recognizable. The thing I remember most, though, is the look of pain in his eyes, creature to creature. I was very sorry, and for the moment there was no distance between us, so to speak. Pain is universal.