When I was a lil boy living in Ozark, AL, I use ta go swimming at Lake Tholocco near Fort Rucker, where my father was stationed in the ARMY. I love ta swim. One day when me and my FAM, were swimming in the waters of the lake, and a man that was water skiing ran into a water moccasin nest and ended up dying. It looked like an oil spill of snakes.
A while later HURRICAN OPAL came barreling through and washed the whole lake away. Leaving behind sand dunes, where kids would dirt bike and ladies would sunbathe topless.
OPAL left a lot of destruction in her path. I loved her refined chaos. I walked around outside during her pandemonium and could smell the purification of the winds and water. I could smell the sap of the freshly snapped pine trees. Branches flew all around me in the darkness of the night. Her rains washed me clean.
Two large trees almost fell on our house. They remained up rooted leaning on two other trees a few feet from our back porch. Large tree branches littered the neighborhood along with front doors, mail boxes, trash cans, and miscellaneous odds and ends. Everyone in our community power was out for a few days.
After everything started to settle down from OPALS aftermath something drastic in my life happened. I didn’t have any DREAM to prepare me for what was to come.
I was doing some yard work when our neighbors HUSKY Ringo darted through our yard chasing a cat. I thought nothing of it. Ringo was one of my good friends. His owners abused and neglected him, and whenever he broke free he always came to see me. We played all the time. I and he would go hunting in the haunted woods behind my house. We went on many adventures together. He was a miss understood grownup pup.
Anyways so he was darting back and forth through our back yard wanting so bad to catch this elusive feline. I stopped and watched and chanted him on. I knew he would never hurt her. Maybe a lil, but nothing too bad. That cat belonged to a WITCH that lived right next door. I always hate this WITCH she was no good, her and the one across the street would always plot and scheme on me. When I would play I could always feel their eyes watching. I could always feel their souls wanting to harm me. Or maybe they just were afraid of me and didn’t want me to know. But those two were always up to something. That something I don’t know.
So I’m watching Ringo chase the cat and the cat darts off into the woods and Ringo follows. I get back to work and I had a vision. The cat jumps between this fork in one of the trees that had fallen during HURRICAN OPAL. Well Ringo of course tries to jump in between and that’s when the nasty deed happened.
I heard a yelp in the distance and that was it, a single high pitched yelp. I ran into the woods screaming for Ringo and got no answer. I knew he was hurt. I knew he needed my help. A few yards in across the creek I saw my buddy laying there on his side breathing heavily. I could see death in his eyes, staring right back mocking me. I ran and got my neighbor and my father. I lead them to where Ringo lay breathing but motionless. I told them what happened. I told them what I saw.
Ringo's owner picks him up and I could feel a sharp pain in my back. We all could see his spine was snapped like a twig. He must have slipped jumping in between the forked tree, and SNAP. =(
Ringo's owners couldn't afford the VET bills and they didn’t care if they lost a dog. They could always get another, but I swear they would never get another dog like him. Ringos owners were well for use of a better term vile in their ways. Their children I loved they were my friends, but they themselves were horrid people.
So me, my father, and my neighbor got a few shovels and dug a hole. I held back my tears because I didn’t want to cry in front of my father. I didn’t want to cry in front of RINGO. I could see the sorrow in his eyes while we buried him alive. I could see his soul drifting off while we tossed dirt onto his still breathing body. After it was all said and done my father and my nehibor went back to their business like nothing happened. I acted like I was going back to do my yard work, and when they both were gone I went back to RINGOs grave and made my peace before I could do anything else.
P.S. The sadder thing about this is my neighbors got a pit bull a few weeks later. They treated him the same as RINGO. It broke free and got lost in those haunted woods, and I found it dead and decayed when I was on one of my adventures. =(
P.S.S. Lake Tholocco has filled back up again.
