Buzz - Chapter 5
Having determined the smell wasn’t anything remotely resembling dinner, Stanley hung back. After a few more steps his roommate collapsed to her knees and let out a loud cry that scared him. His front paws danced beneath him back and forth in a quarter circle maneuver as he tried to figure out how to proceed. The other lady on the ground didn’t bother him. She looked like his roomie sleeping but she was in unfamiliar clothes. He looked at his crumpled friend and nuzzled her arm trying to get her attention. He was concerned. His intense black eyes tried to convey this but she just stared at the body and swayed ever so slightly with each heaving breath.
Clearly the body had to be addressed or they might not get home for dinner. Stanley dropped his butt onto the cool ground and looked around, trying to sniff his way to an answer. Going on instincts, since that was all dogs really had to work with, Stanley headed in the direction his nose took him. He no longer saw the figure on the ground, he just knew that he had found a spot where he needed to dig and set to his task with a vengeance. After several minutes, he detected a shift in the scents and stopped digging. Looking back he saw his roommate still kneeling on the ground. She sometimes got in this position next to her bed at night before they went to sleep but she wasn’t usually crying when she did that.
Trotting over to her he tugged at her sleeve. She needed to come see what he had accomplished. He had dug a really good hole. Good things were often found in holes although he had once gotten a serious whack on his nose when he dug a hole in the neighbor’s yard. For a long moment she didn’t move, but then her body gave a little and she looked at Stanley, glad to have a momentary distraction from the images in her mind. Those had been her shoes and she had fallen asleep in that very spot, years ago. She’d collapsed from the shock and exhaustion and perhaps a little too much wine with dinner.
Stanley ran back over to the hole and waited expectantly, his tale nearly wagging him off balance. “Come back here,” she said as she approached to scoop him up. “We need to go back to the truck now.”
But he backed around to the other side of the hole, forcing her to come closer. That’s when she looked down and caught sight of two small objects made visible through Stanley’s efforts. She wanted to turn away but the realization hit her that if she did, the buzzing would find her again. Just as Stanley had scraped away layer after layer of dirt, it was time for her to peel through the onion layers of understanding. The S-O-S wasn’t a plea from the dragonflies that they needed help, it was their way of trying to help her.
As these thoughts flooded into her brain, she started pacing again. Oh no, Stanley thought, remembering his delicate little paws getting stepped on more than once during her recent pacing episodes at home. Stanley ran and hunkered down under the truck. He couldn’t understand what she was doing but he knew it didn’t involve his belly being filled. And she didn’t need him for whatever this was. He blinked his bulgy eyes and watched with his chin on the ground between his front paws.
Twice she stopped pacing to bend down and pick something up. Stanley started to rise. Those looked like sticks, but he suspected if it wasn’t time for dinner it might not be time for play either. He twitched his back end a little and then settled back down to his previous position, noting that the sun was coming down to eye level.
She walked back over to Stanley’s hole and sat down, putting the sticks beside her. Brushing gently at the ground, tears began pouring down her face again. Stanley suspected his water dish could have been filled with all the water his rommie had leaked today. Figuring his paws were safe with her sitting down, he padded over to her and nuzzled his way into the triangle recess of her crossed legs. From the recess in the ground he could see her pick up a shiny object.
It was smaller than the dragonflies that she had been talking to earlier, the ones who had flown in a big food bowl formation, but it was the same shape. She didn’t talk to this one like she had the others but then this on was in her hand. His Chihuahua to English capabilities were limited, so the words didn’t help him understand. But, he could feel her emotions ride up and down like the bumpy ride they had taken in the truck. Right now she seemed sad so he just perched a proprietary paw on her knee and waited. She continued to rub her fingers over the shiny object, her tears washing away some of the dirt that clung to the intricate patterns on the tiny wings.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, still clutching the metal object. “It was an accident.” Those words sounded familiar to Stanley. He’d heard something like that when he got stepped on.
Then she brushed some more dirt away from the patch Stanley had started excavating and she removed a second object. This one was round and silverish and had little scratched marks on it. Stanley tilted his head slightly causing the similar disc attached to his collar to jingle slightly. He stretched his neck out to sniff at it but this time she nudged his head away. “That’s not yours, Stanley.” Her voice was muffled and he could hear her snuffling and swallowing hard, trying to force something down.
Silent minutes passed and she started to uncross her legs, forcing Stanley to move off of her legs entirely. He decided it was time to go and visit a nearby tree. While he was off doing his business, she untied and removed one of her shoelaces. She wrapped the string around the two sticks securing them in a cross pattern like the shiny object she wore around her neck. Then she put the small dragonfly back in the hole and started covering it up.
“I didn’t know what I’d lost until I got home. I was so afraid someone would find out. They wouldn’t understand it was an accident. But I’ve taken really good care of Stanley. I know it doesn’t fix everything but …” and she trailed off into a sob again.
After she’d filled Stanley’s hole back in, she put the hand-crafted wooden cross on the top. Still clutching the other metal disc, she stretched out on the ground next to the impromptu cemetery. The sun was setting, casting long shadows as Stanley trotted back toward his roommate. Again he tilted has head and gave a little perplexed nudge of her foot. This wasn’t where they slept, but clearly she wasn’t ready to go home. Failing to see an other options, Stanley curled up at her feet. He would stand guard, his evening shadow giving him the external impression of a bigger protector.
It remained quiet and still for a long time but a sudden loud crunching sound perked up his ears. Dust blew up into his sensitive nose, causing him to give a little head-shaking sneeze. Stanley quickly sent out an alert with a quick series of yaps. His roommate sat up with a start and found herself blinking as she looked directly into the flashing blue and red lights.
