{"id":106,"date":"2018-06-14T18:27:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T18:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/?p=106"},"modified":"2019-03-01T19:59:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T19:59:00","slug":"the-rainbow-stories-part-2-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/14\/the-rainbow-stories-part-2-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rainbow Stories, Part 2: Survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome on, boy. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYay! Are we going out? For a walk!? Right now!? Play fetch? I want to know!\u201d My nose already smells the world outside. The smell of wet grass and dogs walking past… I can\u2019t not jump up and down.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cQuit barking, you idiot. That\u2019s the reason we gotta to do this in the first place!\u201d Why is he angry? I thought we were going for a walk. I\u2019m just happy. I\u2019d go anywhere with him, do anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

He walks towards the door, my leash in his hand. I follow, head down, tail almost touching my belly. The scent of rain on grass pulls me forward. The leash in his hand pulls me back. I just want to please him. I look up at him and softly wag my tail as he walk me towards the car. He is going to put me in the trunk. It\u2019s dark in there and I know he\u2019ll get angry again if I jump back out. The lid comes down and I can\u2019t help it. Hands hold me down as the darkness closes in.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how long it takes. How long I lie in moving, shaking darkness and the metal-and-paint scent of the car. He finally stops and I hear the engine shutting down.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so happy to see his face when he opens the trunk. I\u2019ll remember not to bark, I really will! I promise! He takes a backpack out of the car and walks into the woods with me. New scents tease and tickle my nose, pulling me on to explore a bush here, a tree there. The trail of a rabbit across the path where my human and I walk and the sweet scents of flowers everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

My human walks up to a large tree and I mark it for him. This will be our place from now on. He takes off the backpack and pulls out two bowls, a little bag of food and a water bottle. Oh! He brought me food and water! He was like this all the time when I was a pup. He was nice to me then. I walk up to him and lick his hand. <\/span><\/p>\n

He puts down the bowls and I have a drink. I hear the rattling of chain links and look up at him. He hooks it to my collar and ties it to our tree. What is happening? Is he leaving? It must be a game. He\u2019ll be back soon enough. I eat, and lie down to wait. He hates it when I bark, so I just stay quiet and wait for him. I desperately want to show him what a good boy I can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Darkness falls like in the car trunk. The scents and the noises are different. The woods become a scary place. I look around and try to be smaller. I whimper. Can\u2019t be much longer. He\u2019ll be back any time now.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wake up to the sound of whistling birds and I jump up. Is my human here yet? I knock over my water bowl in my hurry to greet him. He\u2019s not there. If being silent didn\u2019t bring him back, maybe he wants me to call out to him? \u201cHuman! Where are you? Please come back!\u201d My barks don\u2019t bring him back. I turn back to our tree, the one I marked for him and curl up against it. His scent still clings there. I close my eyes and dream of when I was little, when he always smiled at me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sun is out when I wake up. I\u2019m hungry. I ate all of my food yesterday and I spilled my water this morning. I smell water though. There is a puddle not far away and it smells amazing. My chain is too short to reach it. I bark again, as loudly as I can with my parched throat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Night falls and I return to the tree where my human\u2019s scent has begun to fade. <\/span><\/p>\n

The darkness comes and goes and I wait for him. I hear footsteps in the distance. They are not his. They are different. The scent is not his either. My throat is dry and sore but I manage to bark. \u201cI\u2019m here!\u201d Please, find me…<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook, Aunt Jen. Up ahead! There he is. I knew I\u2019d heard right.\u201d The two humans come closer, and the boy smiles at me. \u201cIt\u2019s OK, boy. We won\u2019t hurt you.\u201d I hope they have water. I wag my tail and try to be quiet. Humans don\u2019t like barking. I remember that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman is tall and her hair is the colour of the sunset. She looks at my empty bowls and says a word I\u2019ve never heard. The look on the boy\u2019s face makes me think it\u2019s a very, very bad word. They won\u2019t leave me behind again, will they? <\/span><\/p>\n

I whine, and lower myself to the ground, tail firmly pressed between my legs. Please don\u2019t get mad. I promise I\u2019ll be good. Will you take me with you? I don\u2019t want to be alone in the darkness anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

She looks at me and the frown melts. \u201cOh honey, don\u2019t be scared. It\u2019s not you I\u2019m mad at. I just wish I could get my hands on the idiot who left you here.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Idiot. That\u2019s what my human always called me! She knows my name! <\/span><\/p>\n

I lick her hand. \u201cDid my human send you? I miss him so much. Will you take me back to him?\u201d Oh no, I barked! I\u2019ll remember next time, I promise! <\/span><\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t seem to mind and lets me sniff her hand. Her scent reminds me of horses and of\u2026 Of other dogs. She knows other dogs!<\/span><\/p>\n

The chain is badly tangled, but they work at it. In the end, she unhooks it from my collar and she carefully picks me up. I didn\u2019t think I was small enough to carry like that, but she does look strong. <\/span><\/p>\n

I lick her face and I put my head on her shoulder. Her hair hangs down her shoulders and tickles my nose. It smells like flowers. \u201cCome on, buddy, let\u2019s get you home. Patrick, run home and tell Grams. We\u2019ll be right behind you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After days of hunger and thirst, in the sun and in the darkness, she carries me home and gives me water, food, and safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

I live with them now. Grams and Gramps. Aunt Jen. They live on a farm. Patrick comes to visit me here. There are horses, sheep, chickens and cats to play with. And other dogs. There is grass, shaded by trees. There are always new scents to explore and adventures to be had. And there is kindness here. They don\u2019t mind my voice. They don\u2019t mind my insecurity. Sometimes when they leave I\u2019m scared they won\u2019t come back, just like my first human. But they always do. <\/span><\/p>\n

They named me Rocky. Because they say I\u2019m a fighter, a survivor. I don\u2019t know who this Rocky person is. I like the name because they gave it to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This, together with Rainbow\u2014<\/em>which gave the series its name\u2014is both based on the stories of dogs I know in person. My sister owns a little poodle who was saved from a puppy mill, called Dorothy.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, my nephew and I found a dog, chained to a tree in the woods behind my parents’ house. My parents ended up adopting Rocky. Obviously, I didn’t know enough of the dogs’ stories to write an entire story, but I know enough about dogs in general to fill in the gaps and turn the nuggets of background I had into cohesive short stories.<\/p>\n

As always, I hope you liked it. Thank you so much for sharing this with me.<\/p>\n

Hugs<\/em><\/p>\n

Jasmine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome on, boy. Let\u2019s go.\u201d \u201cYay! Are we going out? For a walk!? Right now!? Play fetch? I want to know!\u201d My nose already smells the world outside. The smell of wet grass and dogs walking past… I can\u2019t not jump up and down. \u201cQuit barking, you idiot. That\u2019s the reason we gotta to do…
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[33,18,32,19],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa01Sv-1I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasminearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}