Summer Creative Writing Contest 2021: ‘Alone’

The Palisadian-Post is running a selection of winning pieces from the 2021 Pacific Palisades Library Association’s Summer Creative Writing Contest, which featured the theme “Help!”

The following piece was penned by Rhys Grandy, who was awarded second place in the seventh and eighth grade Scribes category.

I awoke white knuckled, nails digging into my sheets. Once the shock dissipated, I realized the cynical irony in this nightmare, for it was almost identical to real life, as if I hadn’t slept at all. I was sleeping to get away from life, yet the piercing, almost drowning absence of her slithered its way into my brain. Drowsy, I gripped my bed frame and pulled up, sitting straight now. My bed-side clock thrummed, the face glowing, illuminating stacks of cardboard boxes in a dull shade of red. It was half past twelve. The eery midday light shimmered through the gray curtains, somewhat blocked by mountains of trash bags and boxes. I had never realized how somber and bleak the house was. After she passed away the illusion of rainbows in the house faded into reality. Bleak, mind numbing, reality. I wasn’t one for materialistic ideals, but now that all of her sparkly clothes and shimmering jewelry were packaged, her presence fully faded.

However, through all the misery, no, not misery, not sorrow. More lack of feeling, sense, meaning. Through all of this nothing, there was something. The last thing we had together. A fur the color of the sun’s rays in an autumn forest, peaked into the room, tail wagging, eyes sparkling with dumb love. The kind of love that forces humans to love them. Of course, if she didn’t have to be fed, I would never wake up.

Jumping onto the bed, she digs her unused claws into my leg, jerking me up. I would be mad, but I can’t do anything to her, because if she dies, I die. I began to dress, starting my daily routine. Milly walks with me, leading me to her food. I pour her a scoop of the brown pellets, pouring some water into her drinking cup. This really is what she lived for after she died, after quarantine struck. Just to eat, to survive in this prison. It was one year and 1 month after the first discovered case in New Jersey. One year and two months after she died. The funeral came and went before covid got people’s attention, spreading vigorously in a dangerous power grab, crippling continents.

Milly and I walked over to my couch, milly leaping onto the window sill, nose peeking between the two curtains. She was watching other dogs. Covid didn’t let any of us get outside, so she never met other dogs. I pitied her, so I got up, limping over to the back door, she followed, and ran outside. Leaving the door ajar, I walked back into the kitchen to pick up my phone. I typed in the password, and up popped messages from my daughter. We kept in touch often now, I could tell she was worried about me. She would usually just order food for me, but recently she was also texting me about real estate in California, “the golden state”. It seemed like just an idea, a fantasy. But today the tone in her text told me I might actually not die here. She wrote of an apartment near her house, affordable if we combine our savings. The pictures were so bright, the room filled with color, and for a moment I allowed myself to get optimistic, to believe I could live a better life. To not be lonely, but to be a walking distance from my daughter. A smile spread across my face, the skin cracking and folding awkwardly. I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled. A sparkling droplet formed on my eyelid, akin to the fresh dew on a crisp blade of grass. Light sparkled off the droplet, spreading color around the room. My hands shook as I agreed to move near my daughter.

The rest was a blur, packing, going to the airport. Looking at my home now, knowing I was leaving, it was strange. Like I was leaving her in New Jersey, but I wasn’t. She was always with me. Not in my heart, no, but in Milly.

I limped off the plane, the sunshine almost blinding. I had to quarantine for two weeks. After one week I was allowed to go outside. I got a leash, an item strange and unfamiliar for Milly, and looped it around her neck. I opened the doors, breaking into the sunlight. Milly’s fur looked as though it was on fire in the sun. She turned her head, and started to shyly approach another dog on the street.

“Hi,” the lady said. She snapped me out of my trance, my eyes snapping away from Milly.

“H-hi, sorry I didn’t see you there.”

“Oh that’s okay,” She laughed. She seemed my age. “I haven’t seen you around here, did you just move?” I nodded. “It’s great here isn’t it! Well I gotta go now, but you enjoy yourself.”

She smiled, her eyes joyful, and pulled her Labrador away and walked down the street.

I hadn’t met a new person in about a year. Total isolation. My dry skin crinkled, catching my tears. I was no longer lonely. After she died, I was just counting the days until my death. The only reason I’m alive was he—

It was then it hit me. My tears started to flow constantly, as Milly turned her head and stared at me, eyes looking into my soul. She kept me alive. But it wasn’t just that she made me wake up and feed her. She made me learn to love again. Our relationship wasn’t symbiotic, forged on dependence, yes, but looking back I realized I was never lonely, I always had her. She was the last thing I had with her. My wife never left me, she was always here, her fiery presence, my undeniable, constant love for her forever preserved in this dog.

She lapped up my tears with her tongue, standing upright, paws on my chest. My eyes methers, and I could see she loved me too.

I had never been alone at all.