Writing needs darkness for its secrets and admission to truths that never stop bleeding. But who wants to stare at that broken junk in beautiful daylight?

Lily is sick and we don’t have any answers and at work Friday I said at least five times that finally, I am starting to worry. What else can we do try test sample or weigh? I fear the vet is beginning to guess.

Jerry asks, what’s Monday’s recheck appointment? What’s that?

I don’t know, they want a follow up I guess to see if her last diet change and pills worked, I said.

They’re milking you for money. You don’t need this visit.

I tell him, I don’t think it’s intentional but I guess we don’t have anything to check. Nothing has changed and she craps and has gained nothing and that’s it.

I look at Jerry on the couch who has his fists in the air, pumping up and down like he is draining udders.

Fears don’t want shadows that ebb and return or flow away and rush back. They like to loom. They like the stage to themselves. They like the night. Daylight finds holes where secrets hide and mistakes them as stark and alone, easily batted away with a stick or crushed crushed crushed with a stone but the night frees them. They hurry to permeate the air and prompt little subconscious thoughts that I catch like a cold when I sleep.

I wake and look at blackness and yawn; a dream hurries behind a corner as if I caught it naked. My heart rushes along. I dream: Lily stands on a rock in the woods and I approach. She drops her head to the ground then follows a scent and she is gone. I run to her place and find her paw prints.

Morning wakes me again and the dreams are gone. The dogs all are home.

Walking I see a neighbor who asks, is she going to die? I am wondering.

Jerry comes up from the basement, did you know there’s a big fat mud pie on the floor down there, he asks?

Yup. I know.

At the vet’s office I pick up more pills and I ask about Monday’s recheck visit.

There isn’t any change since the last time she was here, I tell the girl at the desk. Maybe we don’t need this visit and can ask the doctor to cancel?

Well, the best thing to do is call us Monday morning. OK, I say.

We’re home the message light blinks Jerry hits it and our appointment has been cancelled, says the receptionist’s voice. Smiling with fingers pointing to himself Jerry says, I’m a genius.

We’re home and Lily just empties like a cracked oil pan.

Does anyone know what to do? A morning of jogging to the forest trails along the water. We listen to Lake Zoar’s frozen surface crack and shift sending deep vibrations and eerie sounds rippling from below like huge aluminum sheets quivering. She chases a stick and runs along then squats and chews. Pieces of bark and chipped wood cover her lips.

Lily has tapped into this really deep well of anxiety that I have kept well dusted well hidden well within sight. I never get past anything or let things go or get over it or any other appeasing thing you want to throw at it. I just accumulate my distress frustration disappointments and a whole ton of other things I can’t cope with and slip things beneath its lid year after year. I realize too late its not a trunk with a sturdy lock but a pressure cooker working slowly and waiting. One day I’ll approach innocently with a damaged little piece of my life dripping in my hands and as I reach for the lid it’s going to shoot off into my face.

I know I have that much coming.

Whenever I begin to worry it’s as if all the duress amassed in that well offers a little bit of its force to make sure my distress isn’t just about Lily, but about everything . She has given me a push and now I have the weight of every damn worry chasing me.

We are back home and I feed her again I feed her all the time I always put food in her bowl she’s starving. With her head flopped to the side she stretches on the floor a few minutes later, then sleeps. Gurgling sounds come from her belly and we look and see a rippling motion lifting the fur gently in a pattern like a bubble beneath the surface.

What if it is something like a parasite, Jerry asks? What if it’s the size of a snake?