MOON’S FIRE WATER
By Carolyn Cary Hall
Carbondale
One evening in the light of the moon a beautiful puppy came into the world. Her fur was a beautiful flaxen color. She had expressive brown eyes, a tiny black nose and four snowy white paws. She loved the touch of her mother’s tongue cleaning her coat, and of how safe it made her feel. She was a happy confident puppy with a great future, and life with her mother was all she needed.
As the days passed, she thrived and became stronger and stronger as she learned to leap across small creeks and jump up on her hind legs to play and play and play, until she collapsed exhausted beside her adoring mother.
Then one day an accident happened. It had to be an accident! Someone took her away from her mother, took her away from all that she had ever known. She didn’t understand what happened. Abandoned, confused, and with a broken heart she somehow, somehow, carried on.
As she grew older she ran into other puppies who had grown into dog-hood, but when she encountered them she found herself on her back showing her tummy because they wanted to bully her and they never stopped. So, she decided the best thing to do was to be by herself.
One lonely day, walking through unfamiliar mountains, she came upon a spring of water. It came from a split in a huge rock filled with green foliage and beautiful ferns that grew all around it forming a pool at the bottom. She thought it was one of the loveliest pools she’d ever seen, and the cool mist forming around her nostrils smelled so good that she stopped and drank the clear delicious water. Then something happened. She wasn’t sure what it was. She just felt different somehow. But the next time she saw other dogs running towards her she didn’t cower. She stood her ground, and to her amazement they ran the other way. It must have been the magic water that made her feel brave, so she revisited the pool more often.
As the years passed by, she gained a sense of independence that other dogs didn’t have. They needed each other, or a human, or something in their life. She didn’t. She was now the lone wolf and held her head high for what she had accomplished, because she knew that most dogs could never survive her way of life.
During her lifetime, she met male dogs who wooed her right off her four legs and she bedded down with them just like she had with her mother. She was content and didn’t need to drink from the magic spring anymore. But after a time, they would turn on her, growl at her, and even try to bite her, so she returned to her mountain and to the magic pool. Sometimes she would lie down next to the waters and whimper and cry aloud, hoping that someone would hear her and come running up to snuggle with her. But that didn’t happen.
Many years passed by. One morning when licking her snowy white paws, she saw that the color of her fur was a little different and her rear hips hurt too. She wondered what this meant. Often, she would go back in time and think about what she could have become — like a guard dog, or maybe a seeing eye dog, or a bomb-sniffing dog, or even a show dog. She could have been any of those dogs, instead she chose to live out alone the rest of her years close to the magic waters.
One late night in the moon’s full brightness, she again thought of her mother, but this time was different! This time she felt her mother’s presence, and even smelled her. “Oh, mother,” she thought, as huge tears formed in her eyes and dropped onto her snowy white paws. She sighed, sighed again, then gradually laid her weary body down and closed her eyes for the last time …
Instantly, she was reunited with her mother. Her mother! That quick! They looked into each other’s eyes. They squealed with joy and delight, then laid down together to snuggle …
Then she watched as her mother licked away the tears from her ebony paws.