After mommy wrongfully punished her for playing with the munchkin, banishing her to the inside of the lair for the second time that same day, Rosie planned to run away from home until deciding it would be a good idea to eat first.
This is the third part of Rosie’s latest adventure. You can catch up on the first part here and the second here, or enjoy another of her adventures here.
Rosie the Three-Legged Dragon had resolved to run away from home, but like many rebellious teenagers, she did not plan to do so permanently. Her lair and her family — for all of the human servants and her little brother Carlitos’ obvious flaws – were precious to her. Instead, she wanted to make a statement about how precious she should be to them and that she simply couldn’t tolerate being unfairly maligned, especially by a figure she loved and admired as much as mommy, the most beautiful woman in the world, the same as she was the most beautiful dragon-dog. Regardless, Rosie was not a rebellious teenager who could sneak out a window or simply use the door when no one was looking. While she was loath to admit the truth, she was largely at the mercy of her human servants in many ignominious, embarrassing ways, and they appeared to be at the mercy of the munchkins who had invaded her territory, resulting in some kind of wild party with feasting, swimming, and music. Not surprisingly, that only made her more angry and more frustrated, giving her yet another reason to want to run away, creating the first if not the last of one of those self-reinforcing mental feedback loops, urging her onward to execute a plan which wasn’t all that good to begin with, assuming she could make it out the door in the first place. For better or worse, this aspect of the plan didn’t appear to be much of a problem any longer. As the day drew on and the sun began to set over the enchanted forest, the humans and their little munchkin hangers on – a part of her hated saying describing them that way, still remembering the moment of love and affection between her and the little girl before disaster struck – became active again, moving from whatever they were doing around the pool in the enchanted forest closer to the lair itself and more frequently coming in and out. Though some of them were still observant enough to heed mommy’s directive to keep her and Carlitos in the house, others, perhaps dulled by that strange drink or simply fatigued by the festivities, weren’t, offering ample opportunity to pick a moment and make a break for it.
During this period, she could’ve left at practically any time, but as so frequently happens in the lives of humans, dogs, and dragons, there was a new development to consider in the meantime. Rather than simply milling about, it appeared the human servants were organizing another feast. Whatever daddy had been working on all day using that strange smoking device, was now sitting right beside the door and armed with her incredible canine nose, she could smell it even through the glass of the window, more than one type of succulent meat in large quantities, just laying there as far as she could tell, resting for some reason she couldn’t possibly explain when her only thought for a few moments – longer even – was how to get as much of it as possible into her belly. There were other delectable dishes as well. Mommy was busy working on items in the oven and on the stove, those strange devices inside the actual lair itself, stirring and mixing, heating and boiling, topping them with luscious sauces and seasonings, making it hard for her to even know what she should be paying attention to most or which direction to turn should she want to sneak a little bite. While Rosie was used to mommy and daddy making delicious dinners, this appeared to be something truly special with both a larger quantity and a variety, which to her instinctually implied would result in larger share, whether or not that was strictly true, one could hope. Whatever the case, she clearly couldn’t leave right now. Even beyond both a dog and a dragon’s drive for food and near insatiable desire to eat, why run away on an empty stomach? She’d need all her energy out in the wide world, wouldn’t she? While these thoughts might seem beyond either a dog or a dragon, humans are probably not the only creature capable of self-rationalization, as alluded to earlier. It might occur on a more primitive level in canines, but mammalian brains of all kinds and sizes appear to be structured around the idea of the self-reinforcing feedback loop, that is once an idea – even a simple one like needing to eat or planning a misbegotten escape – appears to be good, all other mental phenomenon will tend to support it to the exclusion of all else, and so it was that Rosie the Three Legged Dragon, who’d been literally itching for someone, anyone to open the door a few minutes earlier, trapped in one feedback loop, suddenly settled in to wait on feeding time, trapped in another.
Ultimately, this one was worth it. The wait was longer than usual with the human servants and the munchkins gathered outside and Carlitos whining incessantly, trapped along with her, but mommy saved a generous portion for them both – perhaps too generous for Carlitos in her opinion, he was smaller and less important after all – and daddy even let them lick the cutting board, which was practically overflowing with the most delicious, near intoxicating juices she’d ever encountered in her entire life, or at least since the last time she licked the cutting board which probably wasn’t too long ago with the way daddy likes to spoil them both. During the feast itself, her second for the day, prompting thoughts of a third, Rosie was reminded of two things about Carlitos that might have made her change mind in other circumstances. First, she never had to worry when he was around. Before he’d arrived from who knew where – some said China, some said Mexico, she thought it must’ve been the local pound – she had to deal with her menace of an older sister Lily as we have previously described, and there was always the risk of being attacked while she was enjoying a treat, but she and Carlitos could eat off the same plate – as long as he didn’t try to steal any of her stuff – making meal time far more relaxing, indulgent even as it should be for a dragon. While she might eat as fast as ever, woofing it down by the snoutfull, she also enjoyed it more than ever. Second, Carlitos, the little brother Rosie normally considered useless, was really the one to thank for the dramatic improvement in their meals. For most of her life, Rosie would generally eat whatever the human servants put in front of her, being a full sized dog and not known to be picky, but Carlitos was strange in more ways than one, smaller, looking something like a little old man and with some odd habits. Even though he supposedly grew up in an underground racing circuit in Asia before being flown to the United States to escape the meat trade, he had a palette that was far more refined than any canine she’d ever known. He would actually turn his nose up at food from time to time, sniffing at it before turning away as if it was beneath him somehow – I know, he’s crazy – so mommy began preparing him special meals. While Rosie hated acknowledging the truth, she loved the new diet, believing she was finally eating like the queen and the dragon she surely was.
As it happened that early evening, the combination of the two prompted a moment’s reflection after the meal was over, which was no minor thing for a dog. Briefly, she wondered once more if running away was really the right thing to do, especially now that she had a full stomach, but it wasn’t long before her self-righteous – make that righteous in her mind – sense of outrage returned, recreating that far more difficult and dreadful feedback loop, and she began looking for a way out once more. Fortunately for her prospects, the situation with the human servants was still fluid. They were coming and going even after it had gotten dark, cleaning up, whatever that is, fussing with the munchkins, all three of them including the newest arrival wrapped up like a peanut for everyone to marvel at for reasons she couldn’t explain, or doing whatever else they did. It had also been several hours now since mommy decreed she and Carlitos should remain inside at all times, meaning most of them seemed to have forgotten or were no longer paying any attention, even more than earlier. All Rosie had to do was pick the optimal spot to make her getaway, show just a little patience of the more primal wolven hunters she was descended from or the dragon she was, and sure enough, she was able to shoot out the door, run across the patio, and onto an open plain (that is, the neighbor’s yard) in relatively short order. Bounding along, free as can be at least, she snickered to herself the entire way – assuming dogs or dragons can do such a thing, perhaps simply pleased with herself would be a better description – thrilled she’d made it this far and appreciating in a strange sense the commotion she could hear behind in her wake, as if she was already convinced her plan would teach them something even if she couldn’t remember precisely what.
There were a few shouts from the now lethargic humans, who didn’t seem to have the strength to take a single step, one soft cry from a munchkin who might well have been the only one to notice the dog running away, all falling rapidly behind her, but not much else at first, not even a little yelp of alarm from Carlitos, as though they had no real idea what happened or perhaps an actual dragon had suddenly flown out of the house, and they figured it was better that way. For their part, mommy and daddy might have been a little more on top of things, realizing she was gone sooner than most, but before they set out after her, they had to prepare themselves for pursuit, gathering a flashlight to have any hope of seeing her in the dark. Even if Rosie couldn’t technically fly, she was way, way faster than a human, even on three legs and while it didn’t take them long to follow her, she had an insurmountable lead almost immediately. When daddy took her on patrol using the leash – which she had a love-hate relationship with, offering some comfort even as it confined her somehow – she’d humor him and run at his speed, but that was nothing compared to what she could do on her own. As she raced across the open plain to the edge of her territory, she experienced the sort of bliss reserved for those who were born to do something specific, something amazing, something incredible, and delighting in it, every muscle, nerve, bone, ligament, vein, blood vessel, and brain cell directed at a single task, consumed by one, fully synchronized need. If you’ve never seen a three legged greyhound run, it is a sight to behold. The missing leg alters their normal walk, turning it into a hop that relies heavily on rippling the back up and down, almost as though they push themselves forward, but the overall running motion isn’t so obviously affected. In fact, it’s barely affected at all. Rosie bounded across the grass in over six foot strides, using the powerful muscles in her hind quarters to propel her forward, which are unique to greyhounds designed for speed, then somehow managing to bounce effortlessly off the single front leg. From a distance, it’s hard to tell the leg is even missing and inside Rosie’s mind, I’m pretty sure she didn’t know and didn’t care, she just did what she did best – other than eating, roaching, and leaning, topics we will get to in due course.
The run also had an unexpected consequence, however. The route she’d taken from the lair was the same she followed on her usual patrols of her territory and though Rosie had planned to go far and wide, where she would never be found, she soon fell into the old habit and began following a more regular than expected circuit of the neighborhood. While this wasn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself, it meant that mommy and daddy – once they got their slow human behinds in gear – would likely figure out her path, making it only a matter of time before they were able to intercept her if she didn’t change strategies once more. On the far side of the open plain, there was a hard, stone surface, apparently designed for those strange, awful cars humans used, and though sometimes she ventured even further, encroaching on the territory of others, she only did so during the day. That evening, she paused to think for a moment, staring into the darkness before turning back towards the lair to see what kind of lead she was working with. Mommy and daddy might’ve been stumbling around after her in the fashion of a human with only two legs, shining some kind of light toward her as though that could keep her in sight, but they were visible in the distance, heading in her direction, having some sense of where she might be going as expected. From the way they both called out with those strange human noises as they came after, their voices a weird combination of soft, sympathetic, and concerned that she’d run away, promising treats if she’d return, suggested the pair of them were exceedingly sorry for any earlier affronts, but Rosie wasn’t in forgiving mood yet, and she decided to give them a chase to make them feel really, really bad about how they’d mistreated her – how badly mommy had anyway, though at these moments they tended to be both the same in her mind.
Though they were closer than she expected, Rosie had some key advantages in this regard. In addition to being faster than humans, greyhounds are known as sight hounds and even if she weren’t a dragon as well, Rosie can see much, much better in the dark than a person. She also had black fur except for the white of her underbelly, on her paws, and the tips of her tail, making it easy for her to blend into the dark of a suburban street with no lights, able to hide in practically any shadow. For the next few minutes, this made for a little game. She allowed mommy and daddy to get close enough to see her with their little light, only to bolt about a hundred yards further along and then repeat the process, never letting the slow humans get anywhere near enough to intercept her each time. The music and the light still coming from the lair, a few voices drifting through the enchanted forest in the dark, made this back and forth fun for a while, as though it had been organized for the purpose, a soundtrack to an animal that didn’t need one, but at some point much earlier than expected, it seemed that mommy and daddy were onto her sooner than she’d hoped. Rosie the Three-legged Dragon had only gone about half way along one of her full patrols, out from the lair, then up and started back around, when it became apparent even to a dragon-dog they were convinced they knew where she was headed and that, like a usual patrol, she would follow the trail through the enchanted forest back to the house. How Rosie knew this was unclear, except that both of them seemed to have gotten lazy in their pursuit, slower and more sluggish than ever. Daddy was no longer running after her, however slow, huffing and puffing to keep up. He still had the little light, but somehow even that was more confident, as if he could simply keep her in his sights the entire time. Mommy, meanwhile, had rather incredibly taken a short cut and gotten ahead of her on the trail itself, as though Rosie might run up into her arms and all would be well. In fact, if she stayed on the trail, she’d be caught between them, her plans of running away reduced to getting less than a quarter of a mile before falling for the oldest trick in the book, a trap.
At the same time, Rosie was admittedly somewhat scared of the dark, something she didn’t really consider in her plans to run away at night. Though she liked think she was as brave as a dragon and in some ways she might actually have been, there were things that lurked in the shadows in the darkness, hiding beneath the trees, in the long rows of bushes, where even the moon and stars don’t shine, especially if you have the senses of a canine. Rosie could not merely see. She could smell all of the creatures hidden around her, squirrels, deer, racoons, birds nesting in their trees, and practically feel the way the enchanted forest was humming with life even if it couldn’t be observed with the naked eye by a dog, much less a human. Further, she could smell what had been there earlier in the day, those larger, scarier creatures that passed through largely unnoticed unless you were their prey. In that sense, her impression of the night time forest was of past and present combined into one, as though all the animals that had come this way a day or even more before were ghosts that were still there, still creeping, still stalking, still able to sneak up on her when she least expected it. She picked up a coyote who’d been on this trail not more than an hour before, a fox shortly before that, and remarked that both smelled something like she did, though she certainly didn’t want to meet them the way she would a dog, and before the sun had set, a bear. Their scents were like trails of their own, dark, shadowy threads weaving in and out of the darker, harder to penetrate shadows of the trees. There, but not there. Present, but not present. Harmless, yet terrifying.
While none of them were close, much less in range of attack, it was a lesson that the woods were filled with danger, especially at night, and one of the key reasons why she usually went out on patrol accompanied by mommy and daddy, forget being yet another reason not to run away in the first place, but here she was, stuck on the trail, half way between running away and completing her patrol. Mommy couldn’t see her, but she was just up ahead, expecting her to come hopping along. Daddy still had the light on and had gotten close enough, Rosie was generally in his sights as he ambled along after her, probably a little tired from all of the initial running before tracking down their quarry. Rosie, it seemed, had another choice to make. Would she fall into their trap and make the equivalent of the doggie walk of shame back to the lair, where everyone would know she barely made it around the block, or would she run away for real?
TO BE CONTINUED…
Check out Rosie the three-legged dragon and the three days of endless night, and enjoy another adventure with the world’s favorite dragon dog.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 