A Most Terrible Day

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house watching my dog Whee-Zee go out the back door. She’s moving slowly, down those familiar back steps. Past the spot beneath the spigot on the wall where I feed her every night. Did she pause to look down there?

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house looking through the picture window of the living room. Whee-Zee is walking slowly up the driveway, her head hung down. She doesn’t look back.

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house looking at a gray truck sitting at the end of the driveway, its back doors open, and two men are waiting. The truck has letters on it, but I can’t read what they say.
This can’t be happening. My dog, my best friend in all the world is being taken away from me, from all of us, and I wish it weren’t true.

“Whee-Zee is dying”, they say.
“She will suffer more and more, and there’s nothing anyone can do.”
“She’ll be put to sleep, and she won’t feel any pain.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be in Heaven.”

I don’t care. Whee-Zee is my dog, my best friend, my protector. Who has the right to take her away?
She’s still breathing, she still looks at me with those big brown eyes, and she’s happy when I come home from school.
Who says she won’t feel any pain?

I want to run out the door and down those familiar back steps past the spot where I feed her and up the drive and put my arms around her and protect her from all of this, but I’m frozen where I stand. I’m terrified and angry, and my heart is in my throat. WHEE-ZEE! NO, THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!

But it is. It is happening, and I’m watching it happen.

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house and I want to scream. I do scream. I scream deep within myself, from the pit of my soul I scream inside my head. I scream so hard and so loud inside that I almost shatter.

WHEE-ZEE!!!! NO!NO!NO!,NO!,NO!NO!,No,No,No,no,no,no,no,no,n......................

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house, looking through the picture window in the living room. I see my dog Whee-Zee get inside that sad-looking gray truck, and she never looks back. The doors of the truck are closed behind her. What is she thinking about all of this? Does she know?

NO!!!!!!!!

I want to run outside and pound on the doors of that truck and demand that they give me back my dog, that it’s all a mistake, a terrible, horrible mistake, but I’m frozen in terror.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!............

I’m standing in the hallway of our little house, staring out of the picture window in the living room, looking at the end of the driveway where a sad-looking gray truck once stood.