Fault
Dawn Ewald
“Where’s Simon?” my mother shouted down the hall.
“I don’t know,” I answered as I continued my calculus homework.
Half a minute later my mother came down the hallway. With rising panic, she shouted, “Julia! The back gate is open.”
“Wait, what?” I said before I realized she was talking about Simon, “Oh my god…”
“Simon,” she reminded me, but I had already figured that out.
I was at a loss for words. Not sure what to do, I stood up and swiftly followed my mom down the hall to put on my boots, and throw on a coat and hat. My mother did the same.
“I’ll look around our back yard, and you can look out front and down the street,” My mom said frantically, and out of breath.
“Yeah,” I said as I unlocked the front door and shut it forcefully.
My eyes searched my surroundings looking for a cute little black spec. He had to be here somewhere, I thought. He has never wandered too far…
“Simon!” I shouted into the distance.
Silence.
I ran through the snow, causing imperfections in the smooth white layer of dust that had been falling on top of the existing piles. I dashed to the sidewalk and looked both ways, not sure which way to look first. Stupid. Just find his paw prints in the snow. Fortunately, they were still visible, although slowly fading away.
I crossed the street and ran halfway into our neighbor’s backyards, where I had found Simon running around the last time he ran away.
“SIMON!” I called out repeatedly.
The sun was bright, and my eyes were burning from looking down at the glowing snow, but I had to follow his paw prints before they disappeared. He had gone into a couple backyards--I marched right through their yards as if I were following the pathway in a marathon.
I finally saw something moving through the abandoned winter day, but it was just a squirrel. Damn it. Nope.
His prints were going south and my worried head suddenly told me he might be going towards Northwest Highway. My heart was beating faster, and it was getting hot running around with my winter clothes on. Nonetheless, my hands were as cold as ice.
His prints had ran up to trees, pranced across streets, and frolicked down sidewalks. Whenever I gave his walks we would always walk on the sidewalk so that if he ever got loose he’d stay safe on the sidewalk.
Suddenly my head jerked up and my eyes attempted to fix in on a black dot moving around on the block kitty corner to me. Simon.
My heart jumped out of my chest and my feet took off, dashing across the street towards him. I felt Simon get closer to me as I approached the last few houses on the block.
“Simon!” I cried with joy.
Simon had already noticed me and was sprinting towards me at full speed. He only used his super-speed running when he was extremely hyper, or saw a squirrel. My sister and I had always loved to watch him sprint around our backyard like a cheetah.
My smile spanned my whole face and my eyes started burning with tears of joy. My surroundings blurred as my vision focused in on Simon.
“Oh, Simon boy!” I exclaimed as he began darting across the street.
The landscaping of the corner house prevented me from seeing down the street to the side but I suddenly realized a vehicle was making it down the street when I heard the motor. Speeding beyond belief, I’m sure. It beeped its horn, and the sound drained out everything else. Now I saw it. It’s dark green body shining like a bullet.
Abruptly, I started moving and seeing in slow motion. My running slowed to a stop, and my surroundings shook me. The world stopped as I saw it slowly crash into him in slow motion. I saw his body shake on impact and fly several feet in the air and away from me.
My boney knees lost balance and dropped down to the snow. The car continued going at least 50 down the residential street, without a care. I wanted to chase it. I wanted to kill them. I wanted to run up to Simon and help him. I wanted to tell him he’d be okay. But my muscles weakened and I couldn’t do anything. I felt my body sway in the harsh wind, and I felt my heart beat like someone was hitting a bass drum with all the force they had.
I sunk in the snow and lifted my head to look up at him. Everything was still. No more cars rolled down the deserted road. No people were out in the freezing winter breeze. Simon lay motionless on the side of the road.
I finally regained enough composure to start making my way towards him--I tried to stand up tall, and stride towards his innocent body. Unfortunately, the best I could