The sun rose over the water and Henry tugged off his dark glasses and exclaimed, "I am feeling SO alive today!" He loved watching the sun rise. Heading back towards his log cabin, his brisk walk making the snow crunch, crunch,crunch, crunch, he thought about how he had become a hermit.
He was aghast at what happened to him, for it was so long ago that he had worked as a vet. He'd been a very successful vet but it had begun to bother him that some of the animals were dying. He reached the end of the woods, and then he walked through the little gate and paused and looked at his house, the old log cabin. His cabin was pine wood with a mossy roof with a garden in the back. A front window faced a beautiful view of a waterfall and the sunrise.
As he walked up to the house he thought about the monkey. He desperately wished he'd never taken care of that famous monkey. Everyone had loved Slippo, everyone who loved animals had loved Slippo. Unfortunately, the near-human creature had died while under his care. People were furious. People had blamed Henry. It ruined his business.
No wonder he decided to live alone in the forest.
Time flowed by and he had begun to lose track of it. He remembered Slippo with decreasing clarity. Occaisionally he had these thoughts about what had happened, but he was happy being a hermit.
Around the corner of the house two dogs sprinted towards him. They bared their teeth at him and snarled until he got over to them,then they stopped. "Why do
they always do that?", he thought. "They act like they don't know me." As he stretched to hang up his coat, he realized that only two dogs
were there.
Checking the doghouse that he had built behind the cabin he found a nasty surprise. There lay Rover,dead. Even though Rover was a young dog, it looked like he had died from old age. Henry was confused.
It wasn't a week later, it seemed, that he found that only one dog came when he called.
He followed the path out to the doghouse again and Max was there. Scared, he shook the dog. It woke up.
It seemed alright and followed him to the food dish. That night a huge storm came and
in the morning neither one of the dogs was around. Henry went out once again to the doghouse. He found that only one dog would wake up. Max had died form old age too.
When the wild strawberries were in bloom his last dog passed away. It didn't make sense. He wasn't sure why the dog died, because it was young like the others. Yet it had slowed down and had problems that only old dogs usually have.
He thought about the deaths. This couldn't be a coincidence! What was happening? He was sad for a long time and he began to wonder about his own health. He decided to see a mental health doctor.
A
board a bus on it's way to the city he bumped into a man in a white suit. "Excuse me" he said.
Astonished, the man in white asked,"Can you see me?"
"What do you mean?" Henry replied.
"So you are dead too, then?" the man asked.
"Uh,no! I'm not dead," he shouted,"Help! Help!"
No one on the bus even looked. Then he remembered. He remembered clearly now when the dogs died. They each had lived over 14 years. Henry murmured "So I AM dead." Henry missed his dogs, but still to this day can't find them since they have moved on.
When you hear the thud,thud,thud, out by your doghouse maybe that is Henry looking for his dogs.
