[This story is a Storymatic exercise]
Now
Drip.
A sound follows, approaching from the far end. It arrives fashionably late, as if held up by rush hour traffic. Finally, it comes. My ears angle to follow its retreat. In its wake, the pipe seems silent. Gradually, ongoing noises retake center stage. The gurgle of water streaming down the ribbed floor. The gentle hiss of sand grains carried by the flow. The buzz of a fly taking care of urgent business some ways up ahead. Distant human sounds, so faint that they have little individual identity.
Human sounds. Humans. I suddenly feel a deep longing. What am I doing here?
Drip.
Right on the base of my tail. One more drop and I'm getting up to shake. Seriously now. I'm already shaking. Just one more drop.
Human sounds again. The longing too.
Drip.
Fine, maybe next time. I'm not ready. How did I get here? Ah!
Before
I first felt it in the ears. Not ears, exactly, but someplace between them. The pressure. I looked up at dad. He didn't seem to notice, so I mentioned it. Casually. "Mmm-hmm," he replied. Casually. Without looking up from his phone. Fine. I got up and bumped his leg. Then I explained it to him in detail.
"Please be advised, esteemed parent, that a significant storm system is rapidly approaching so we should get my outdoor needs taken care of at your earliest convenience." I thought that was fairly clear, but all I got was a "Yeah, yeah, in a minute."
According to my calculations, dad does not understand minutes. By the time he put on my harness, the air pressure was… oppressing. Or decompressing. I don't have much fur, but whatever I have was starting to stand up.
"It sure got cloudy," dad observed as we passed the Insta… I mean, the big community oak. A storm, really? You don't say.
"Hey dad, let's skip the park today," I suggested, trying my best to sound confident and definitely not a bit scared. I then proceeded to use the Millers' lawn, to emphasize my point. I didn't count on Miller senior, who must have been waiting all day for an opportunity to have some social interaction. Then there was screaming. I remember something along the lines of "I was going to pick it up, calm down, Keith!", and "Get that rabid dog away from me!", but most of it was unintelligible.
To tell the truth, I was feeling a little rabid just then. Nobody talks to dad like that, and I was about to snap. Whether I would start with Miller's neck or my leash, I didn't very much care. I prepared to lunge, and then it hit. It was blinding, deafening, and, not to make excuses, it was altogether too much given the level of tension I was already experiencing. Then sparks came out of a transformer at the end of the block.
Then I was running. In retrospect, this is not necessarily true. There was running, and there was fear, and there was no I. The running and the fear continued, and then rain and more thunder joined them. It was dark, cold, and pipe. Then the running was gone, and all that was left was the fear, the dark, the cold, and the pipe.
Now
Drip.
Maybe if I just scoot over just a bit, it'll stop, and I won't have to get up. Or shake. Or make a sound. Or admit to the world that I exist, here, in this pipe, feeling helpless and lost. Then I won't have to do anything about it. How long can I keep that up? Come to think of it, how long has it been? Has my legendary sense of time forsaken me? Maybe I've always been here, and all my memories are echoes of a dream, fading now that I've awoken into reality.
That must be it. Reality is a cylinder. A murky, dark cylinder with a gurgling soundtrack.
Drip.
Alright, a leaky cylinder with a fly. Also, there is hunger, which brings up an important question. "Can I eat that fly?" No, not that question! "Who is feeling the hunger?" Someone is also feeling the droplets. Then, am I a tubular entity dreaming of being a dog, or a dog dreaming itself into paralysis? I got goosebumps thinking about that one. Do pipes get goosebumps, or is it just dogs?
I propose the empirical approach to resolving this dilemma. A journey of a thousand steps begins with one. Two, in my case. Incidentally, is it two thousand for quadrupeds? I shall make my first two steps now. After I stretch. That feels nice. And shake. Now step, paw, I command thee!
I smell freedom! Wait a minute, freedom smells like mom's cooking. Mom! Dad! I remember! Wait, is that my house?
