By Stephen Woods
It was early morning, but the cloud and fog cover was so thick that Robin could have sworn the sun was setting, not rising.
The overgrown strip of grass between the sidewalk and the roadside was covered in a layer of glistening dew. The dark grey mass of clouds had brought rain in the night, judging by the dark tinge to the concrete and the puddles in the gutters.
Robin hesitated on her doormat, regretting not putting her boots on first. With a grimace she walked out over the lawn, boots in hand, the wet grass dampening her socks with every step. It was near the end of winter, warm enough that dew was not frost, but cold enough that the ground could suck the heat from your feet in seconds.
The asphalt stank of moisture, thick and heady, and water had pooled in the holes and depressions of the road. The flooded gutters were stagnant ponds, two icy mirrors racing down either side of the faded white lines that divided the road like territorial lines on a map. The telephone poles and streetlights reflected off the still surface of the water, totem poles to the analog gods of a bygone era.
The breeze gusted, the water rippled, and the illusion of mirrors was ruined.
Robin sniffed sharply, still half asleep, the cold air stinging her nostrils, helping to wake her. She opened the dented and scratched door to her pickup and pulled herself inside. She dumped her boots on the passenger seat and pulled her keys out of her sweatshirt pocket with a sigh, her feelings briefly taking shape in front of her as a cloud of moisture.
She glanced longingly at the faded colors on the AC controls, remembering a time when the heater still worked. She shoved her key into the ignition, and then let her hand fall back down into her lap, her eyes turning to stare out the window.
Behind the rows of one-story houses on the opposite side of the road, with their unkempt front lawns and generally rundown state of perpetual depression, was a forest, peeking above the rooftops. The breeze sent the tree branches rippling, creaking, and twisting in a violent dance that made her shiver without understanding exactly why.
She shook her head to clear it and turned the engine on before reaching down and ratcheting the heater dial to full, even though she knew it wouldn’t work. She felt herself zoning out to the rhythm of the engine and the muscle memory action of putting the pickup in gear as she pulled out into the middle of the road, before freezing with her foot just above the gas.
A stray dog walked calmly onto the road in front of her, glancing over at the sound of her engine, but seeming unfazed by it. The dog lapped at a puddle of water, and then settled down on the asphalt. The pickup slowed to a stop a short distance in front of it.
The dog just sat there, in her way, in the middle of the road, staring mutely at her pickup. Robin stared back at it just as blankly.
She was woefully ignorant of dog breeds, but it looked like the kind that would get called a mutt. Its fur was darkened from dirt and mud, but Robin could tell that its true color was a warm butterscotch. It tilted its head to the side, looking up at her with large and inquisitive eyes.
She placed her hand on the center of the steering wheel, before remembering that it was still in the early hours of the morning, and the sound of her horn would wake up everyone on the street. There was something about disturbing the silent stillness of dawn that had always felt wrong to her anyway.
She turned the wheel and gingerly put her foot down on the accelerator, trying to skirt around the dog on the opposite side of the road. It perked up as she inched past, then stood up and began following alongside the pickup, mouth open and tongue hanging out in the anthropomorphic semblance of a smile.
Robin was forced to pull to a second stop. With the dog blocking her it was either stop, or continue driving on the wrong side of the road. The dog stopped alongside the pickup, settling down on its haunches and staring up at the passenger side door expectantly.
Robin started off again, only for the dog to follow just as it had before, and then sit down as she stopped for a third time. She struggled to hold back a sigh as she turned the engine off, glancing out the passenger window at the dog’s head, only just visible from where she sat, its eyes a deep coppery-brown.
She pushed open her door and stepped out, cursing softly under her breath as she stepped directly into the flooded gutter, the water up to her ankles. She rounded the pickup and then stared at the dog with a frown. It stared back, tail wagging happily behind it.
“Well? What are you doing out here?” she asked it softly.
The dog looked over at the pickup before yawning, exposing its slightly yellowed teeth and squeezing its brown eyes closed before looking back at her.
“Well, you don’t exactly seem wild. You’re not frothing at the mouth at least,” she murmured, hesitantly reaching out and petting the dog on the head. It panted happily, pushing its head into her hand, tail softly thumping behind it. “You’re friendly enough, but where’s your collar? Huh?”
She surveyed the road, both ahead and behind her, but there was no one in sight, and barely even a flicker of movement, besides the softly quivering blades of grass and the swirling-swaying motion of the trees behind the houses. The infantile breeze brushed her hair down into her face, tickling her nose, giving her the faint itching foundation of a sneeze. She rubbed her nose and looked back down at the dog.
“Are you lost?” she asked, feeling a burden of responsibility begin to settle on her shoulders. She folded her arms and sighed. “I guess I have to take you in to the vet now, huh? See if they can find your family…”
She stared down at him for a moment longer, then reluctantly opened the passenger side door to the pickup, the dog jumping up inside without hesitation. Robin scratched her cheek, surprised that she hadn’t needed to goad or lift him inside.
She closed the door and circled back around to the driver’s side, this time being careful to step around the ankle-deep water in the gutter. She settled back down into her seat with a sigh, shared a glance with the dog, and then peeled off her wet socks, tossing them up onto the dashboard.
She turned the key in the ignition, the pickup grunting and rumbling to life, and then pulled out onto the other side of the road.
She headed for town, for the veterinary clinic near the library. She’d never had a need to visit it before; in fact its proximity to the library was the only reason she even knew where it was.
She glanced over at the dog several times on the drive, but he seemed right at home in the passenger seat, looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by.
It was just as she was passing the first few shops that she realized that something was different. “Huh, how about that…” she said with a chuckle, holding a hand out over the vents on the dashboard, warm air blowing into her open palm. She glanced over at the dog, and he stared back, his tongue sticking out and undulating with each breath.
“You know how long it’s been since that heater’s worked?” she asked the dog as she threw her indicator on and turned onto the main street. “I guess you’re a good luck charm, huh?”
She pulled into a free parking space in front of the vet, someone just unlocking the double doors and putting out a sign on the sidewalk as she turned the engine off.
“Look at that, perfect timing. Maybe you really are a lucky dog,” she murmured as she grabbed her boots from the passenger seat, behind the dog, and then put them on. It felt wrong to wear them without socks, but she didn’t doubt that it would be even more uncomfortable to wear them with her dripping wet socks.
The clouds overhead were beginning to thin, the fog cover already gone, though the air was still cold enough for her to see her own breath. She opened her door, rounded the pickup, and opened the other door for the dog. It hopped out happily and loped up onto the sidewalk.
For a moment she had a sudden spike of worry, thinking that it might take this chance to bolt, running off into the center of town. But after only a moment of sniffing around the dog followed her to the door of the vet, and then inside.
She explained the situation to the woman at the counter inside, who looked through a list of missing dogs and then scanned him for a microchip. Neither search produced any results.
“So what happens now?” Robin asked as someone took the dog into the back to give it a bath.
“That’s it, at least your part. We’ll contact other vets and animal shelters to see if anyone’s been looking for him. We can only keep found dogs for two days though, so if his owners haven’t come for him by then he’ll go to a shelter, unless someone volunteers to look after him.”
Robin nodded after a moment and murmured her thanks before leaving. She pulled herself up into her pickup and started the engine, draping her wet socks over the vents so that they would hopefully dry on the drive to work.
The clouds parted overhead, rays of sunshine blazing down across the sidewalk, reinvigorating the town with life. Robin held a hand over the vent next to the steering wheel, watching the light morning traffic as her hand warmed.
A jogger ran past, sweating and huffing as he went, shortly followed by a couple walking their dog in the opposite direction. Robin’s eyes fixed on the dog, a poodle of some kind. She watched it go, the couple turning the corner.
She lowered her hand, and then turned the engine off. She pulled open the door to the vet and approached the woman at the counter a second time, handing over her details and asking the woman to call her if they didn’t find the dog’s owners before the two days were up. The woman gave her a knowing smile and promised that she would see to it.
As Robin left the vet the darkness overhead continued to dissipate, a soft blue winters day sky pushing its way through the cloud cover. Sunlight glittered and glistened over the wet ground, sparkling like a thousand lights as Robin’s pickup hummed its way down the road.
Winter’s Break started out as a disconnected piece of wintry prose that I started writing last winter. I tried to turn it into a real short story on three different occasions, but the ideas either never stuck, or didn’t gel with the feel of the prose. This particular iteration, unlike the others I’d tried before it, had no outline other than a single scribble in one of my notebooks about a dog and a heater. I guess sometimes that’s all that’s needed.