This is a new piece, true story. One of the greatest things about the Inditer (there are so many!) is the opportunity to share ideas, and encouragement, with other writers. The following sprang from a simple idea from another writer: Walk, then write. Kathryn

It was Friday, early evening and beautiful. The sky wrestled shades of pink, gold, and gray, reluctant to release the golden spring day but eager for the cooling breezes of evening. I walked, stepping confidently, setting a brisk pace for my furry companions, Zofi and Tag. These are not dogs but people in dog suits, spoiled beyond belief and loved to a maximum. I once furnished my television room in all leather, not from any particular fondness for the fabric, but out of a desire to have furniture conducive to these two sprawling beside me at movie time and still providing easy cleaning. It was the time of evening where, were I still in my native California, I would not have taken more than three steps without casting a nervous look behind, wary of the stranger in the bushes, the bogeyman after my wallet, the garden variety whacko lurking in a doorway. But this was Sandy, Utah, a stucco, ornate rock, and red brick community tucked up against the base of the Wasatch, a last pitstop for Chevron gas, an Einstein Bagel, and Barnes & Noble before ascending to Snowbird for skiing. The worst thing that might happen here is being accosted by an errant missionary, desperate for a convert, who assails me with little blue books of Mormon, the liturgy of families are forever and long talks on how I ought to turn my downstairs laundry into a food storage in proper preparation for 'The End'.

Within ten minutes we have arrived at Sandy's finest park, Flat Iron Mesa, a beautiful rolling green expanse at the top of a very steep path just off Viscounti Drive which makes me appreciate the day I quit smoking, every time I make it to the top without requiring an EMT to meet me with oxygen tank ready. I try to convince Zofi and Tag to walk quickly ahead of me, visualizing an impromptu dog team that would pull me up the last steep incline, but no use. More usually what happens is just as I've gained my momentum, they fall back to sniff out the same spot in the same clump of grass by the same dumpster we've walked past all week long.

We arrive at the top, the dogs sniffed out, their owner gasping for air, although not as rapidly, I'm finding, as during the first month or so I walked the route.

Not surprisingly, there are just a few couples walking the mile long track around the many soccer fields in the center. Between the hours of five and seven, you might find any number of soccer practices, a football skirmish, joggers, rollerbladers, and several baseball practices going on. Blankets in soft yellows, bright reds, and pastel checks dot the open areas, where parents keep one eye on the soccer practice, one eye on a pretty good book or magazine. Come the magical dinner hour, any time between six and nine, and the park empties as if on cue. What you're left with are the lone joggers, the young kids sneaking Marlboros behind the bleachers, grandparents with four footed 'children' who have moved in to dispel some of the lonliness of their empty nests, and people like me, who eat dinner so early it would more propertly be called lunch, and who prefer to save that final walk of the work week for a quiet time sans soccer practices, a time when it's cool enough to enjoy the brisk pace the dogs require, once we've reached the top.

I have not forgotten my mission in coming here, having been challenged by a fellow writer to meet someone new. To extend myself, as my sister would put it, to someone I have never met before. To allow, as my sister would also put it, a new person to invade the three feet of personal psychic space surrounding me. To perhaps, as my sister would go on, put some good karma out there into the atmosphere, rack up a few existential brownie points before going into the weekend. My sister would say all this, then quietly pour another mug of Gallo of Sonoma and retire to her Tarot Cards. The other writer, on the other hand, had taken the more direct route, and put it in terms I could understand: Walk, he challenged. Then write. So I am walking. I am halfway around the track, I am extending myself, I am available for conversation, I have even left behind the wristband am/fm radio I generally strap on, the headsets plugged into my ears, partially blocking out the sounds of the park. I will extend to the first person I meet, the couple leisurely approaching from the edge of the field, their figures muted by the fading light of afternoon.

They approach, a small dog between them. A dog that resembles a roll of yarn with loose ends hanging out all over, and legs so low to the ground I doubted his underside was ever really clean, being perpetually dragged in the dust the way it seemed to be. I attempted eye contact as they approached, but found myself consumed with restraining Zofi, who had, at the last minute, decided to ignore any training she'd ever received and bark like a wild thing as the little yarn dog approached. This would never work. I'd have to pull her off the path, make her sit until they'd passed by - - and hopefully extend to the next person I met. Preferably someone without a dog in tow. Or at best, a well-mannered dog like Tag, who looked up at me as we stepped into the grass of the soccer field, his ears back and eyes wide as if to say, "She's embarrassing us again, isn't she?" as the couple drew closer. With every foot they moved closer to us, Zofi struggled a bit more against her leash, until, at the moment the couple was passing with their dog (a Shiz-tu, I realized, recognizable not because I am a dog afficiando, but because I once babysat one for a week, for some friends. A dog the size of a cat, with hair like yarn and a preference for spending hours at a time inside a crate, drinking water from a hamster bottle, does not soon fade from a person's memory), all sense of self restraint she might have been feeling evaporated and she strained against the leash, almost choking herself in the process, emitting a sad strangling sound before collapsing back into reluctant sitting mode by my feet.

This turned out to be the ice breaker I'd been looking for, and the couple stopped, a good number of feet away, but stopped nonetheless, with their inquisitive little yarn dog at their feet, nervously pacing but quiet. Like Tag, who had given up all interest in whatever was happening around him, and was napping at my feet.

"Oh my," the woman said, "is she OK?"

"She's fine," I said, "I mean, I'm sorry. She's just a puppy, and she's still working on her social skills, I guess."

The woman shook her head, in no hurry to move on, and at this time, the gentleman stepped a bit closer, then leaned down to scratch the ears of his yarn dog. "She's maybe five," he offered, "although we can't know for sure. We picked her up as a pup, so we're just guessing. Guess that was - - - ?"

"Two years ago," his wife finished for him, in that way that wives have of finishing sentences their husbands begin. This sometimes annoying but often very useful habit develops anywhere from five minutes to five years after saying "I do".

"Strays can be the best pets," I agreed, then briefly explained how I'd found Tag abandoned outside a grocery store nine years earlier, leaving out the part about how that had been at a very unhappy and lonely time in my life where the little black bundle I'd put into the car had turned out to be less dog and more mender of broken heart, and finished by explaining how Zofi came to live with us when her original people found that a dog of her size really didn't fit well into their active, traveling lifestyle. When I'd finished, I realized they'd moved in a few feet closer, and to my surprise, both the yarn dog and Zofi were now close to asleep at their respective masters feet, completely disinterested in taking bites out of each other. The sky had darkened just enough to tell me that as usual, I'd gone on too long when talking about my dogs. A trait I'm sure I share with dog lovers the world over. For us, our dogs are our chldren. Ask us how we found them, and we'll go on as long, and as poignantly, as any parent asked to show baby pictures.

The couple nodded in unison and understanding. I waited for their own tale of love, how they found their little yarn dog, and was surprised at the lukewarm tone of the woman's voice as she began. "I sent him to the grocery store," she said, jerking her head in her husband's direction. "That new Reams over in South Jordan? " I nodded my head, although I didn't have a clue which store she meant. I hadn't driven the nineteen odd blocks to South Jordan since 1996, and that only in follow-up to an ad for an outstanding yard sale. But I'm glad I nodded, because it seemed to spur her on, although it did nothing to minimize her lukewarm tone, which quickly turned cold, then faded into bitter as the story unfolded. "He came back with the wrong ice cream," she stated flatly. "Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey, not cookie dough. And some story about a dog, tied up outside. 'It's somebody's dog,' is what I kept telling him, but he wouldn't let it go, and maybe three hours later, around four, he's off to the store again, volunteered out of nowhere to pick up some cookie dough-"

"Dog was still there," he said, breaking in to provide his own rendition of events. "When I went in and when I came back out. Nobody leaves their dog tied up for that long."

I nodded again, this time in complete understanding. Nobody who loved a dog would leave them tied up for half that long. Just as no one who loved a dog would be able to drive off and leave them. So I was happy to note that the man finished the story by relating how he'd driven around the block twice before returning to the store, putting the yarn dog into his truck, and bringing her home as a permanent part of the family.

"And the hassle!" the woman said, frowning at the dog. "You have to walk them every day, as I'm sure you know. We're retired, this is just like having kids again. Constant demand on your time. Feed me. Entertain me. Clean up after me. Hmph."

"That's why we have two," I said, but directed my comments to the man, deciding he would be more understanding. "We've always had two dogs, and one seems to keep the other entertained. But you're right about the walking part," I said.

"Well, you're younger," the woman stated, not unkindly, but with a look that took me in from head to toe, appraising me like a piece of furniture she was debating adding to her sun porch, then deciding against it. "No, we don't need another dog, we just need this one to get old, or get a better home, and then we're done with it-"

"Now honey," the man said, tugging lightly on the dog's leash, speaking to his wife but never taking his eyes off the dog. "Now, honey."

She shot him a look. I know that look, having been married a few years myself. "Well, " I said, I'd better get these guys home. It was nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," they echoed, and it had been, I thought, as I moved the dogs along the path again, even if I hadn't asked their names. I didn't know their names and I didn't know where they lived, if they were of the neighborhood contingent who walked to the park, or the many area residents who drove. So, like the tree in the forest falling and making a noise or not if no one was around to hear it, had we even met at all?

My sister would say of course. She would say not only had we met, but that we'd been destined to meet, having shared some sort of karmic exchange, good or bad, in a past life, which made this meeting necessary. We had to meet again, to set things straight. Yeah, sure, I'd counter, but are you sure it was me and the people who needed to meet, and not the dogs? Maybe the dogs knew each other in a past life, only then they were squirrels or birds. This would send my sister into what we called a 'snit' when we were kids, a prolonged pout induced by my lack of respect for her all encompassing knowledge.

Good or bad karma aside, I'd met two very nice people. And I couldn't help wondering, as I headed for home, as the golds and pinks of the sky melted to dull grays and finally to a misty darkness pierced by the soft glow of streetlamps every few hundred yards, what would become of the yarn dog.

Would she live out a long and happy life with those two? Would she finally work her way into the woman's heart, melt the 'anti-dog' feelings I felt coming from her? Or would she remain 'his' dog, a part of their lives never to be, in their hearts, true community property, loved by both? I hadn't any idea, but if it was up to me to say, I'd guess the dog would eventually win her over. They have a wonderful way of doing that, of coming at you at 150 mph with unending, unasking, absolutely selfless love until you can't help but accept it. Hadn't Tag come into my life, outside that grocery store, at a time when I so much needed his companionship, and love? And how interesting, I thought, nearing home, that this ridiculous looking yarn dog had also appeared outside of a grocery store. To a man who, if I could take the liberty of guessing about his home situation, could stand a little unconditional love, regardless of where it came from.

Perhaps what I'd really learned from this whole supposedly chance encounter was that guardian angels came in the form of dogs left outside grocery stores, and it was the same throughout the entire country. That perhaps I had run into these people in order to learn that, and to realize that what I had was not really a sort of beat-up, aging salt and pepper haired dog, but an angel of sorts, a dog who came back in this lifetime as my dog, to fulfill his mission of providing unconditional love when someone least expected it. Perhaps, in the short form, angels come into our lives when we're too busy thinking about milk, eggs, and whether or not we're out of coffee creamer to notice them.

My sister would like that theory, and the writer might even be pleased by it. I resolved to write it as soon as I got home. And with the dogs at my feet, napping under my desk, it wouldn't take me long.

---

If you haven't used the Inditer.com 'response page', get started! Send in your comments and critique on Kathryn Jennings-Hancock's stories. Inditer.com is a community of like minded writers.
Each wants and deserves the help of the other.
Do it! It won't cost a dime! You'll be glad you helped!

---