Flying

 

 

Early yesterday evening I was lounging in the first floor sitting room trying to catch up with The Borgias.  It's been a busy week and I had wanted to swim in the river but the weather was thick and heavy as though a storm was coming.  So I chose The Borgias instead.   I could hear the dog moving about above me in one of the second floor bedrooms and Cesare Borgia’s man, Migoletto, was just murdering the King of Naples by pushing him in a pond of lampreys.   Suddenly the most awful thing happened – much worse than the lampreys.  Just as they were heaving the murdered king back to his castle, the dog flung herself from a second floor window and hurtled past me head first, heading groundward.   I made a kind of horrible wailing noise – I certainly howled for Mike, who was resting in the bedroom, then staggered downstairs and outside.  I knew I had to get to her but didn’t want to look.  It’s stony immediately outside our house and I was expecting a dead dog – or one that was horribly wounded.  But she wasn’t there.  There was no dog and no blood or hair or broken bits of dog to be seen. 

We started the search for her, calling and shouting and scouring.  There was no barking or whining or response.  “I think she has gone somewhere quiet to die,” I said, becoming increasingly frantic at the thought of a hidden, desperately hurt dog.   We looked behind things and under things, in the barn, through the fields, down by the river,  across the orchard.   Mike drove off to search the village.  “She may have staggered down the road,” he said.  “She could be disorientated.”  I refused to go with him, in case she came home. 

So I was alone when I looked one more time in the wood barn.  And I found her.  She likes it in there, just inside the door - it’s cool and shady.  But this time she had clambered over piles of knobbly chopped up wood and got as far to the back of the barn as possible.  She looked at me and wagged her tail and I climbed over piles of knobbly chopped up wood to get to her.   I don't go in the wood barn much - I’m always afraid of snakes.  Snakes might like it there.   Dolly was pleased to see me.  She got up and walked around and did a bit of wagging and a bit of licking.  And there was nothing wrong with her.  Not a break or a scratch – not even a falter.  I’ve still got bruised legs from slipping on the kitchen floor last week but my dog appears to be indestructible.   She just wants to go somewhere dark and quiet when the weather gets stormy and is perfectly willing to leap out of second floor windows to get there.