The bright morning sun poked through the basement windows, creating squares of light on the cold, cement floor where she now slept. No birds were chirping, but that was nothing new. She couldn't remember the last time that she had heard their beautiful singing voices working masterfully in tandem. The unpleasant aroma of urine and feces was potent in the dank cellar, and she knew that she had lost control of herself again during the night. The Man would not be happy about this, and she did not eagerly anticipate his arrival downstairs. She hated smelling the anger on him. Hated it. Didn't The Man know that she couldn't help herself? But still he grew angry upon seeing the mess, which was an occurrence that was beginning to happen with more frequency these days.

Looking around, she noticed that the basement was even emptier now. Throughout the course of the past few days, The Man and The Woman had been taking stuff upstairs. She did not like this. Not one bit.

Lying on her side, she stretched her legs out and was greeted with an incredibly painful sensation of millions of tiny needles probing invasively at her hindquarters. She had had bad hind legs for many years now, and they seemed to be getting worse by the day. The pain was almost unbearable at times, and she often collapsed like a rag doll as a result of it. Sometimes she wouldn't be able to make it upstairs without some help from The Man or The Boy.

A new scent seized her and drowned out that of the bodily excrements for a few moments. She knew that The Man had arrived. It was different this time, though. Very different. She did not smell the usual anger wafting from him. Rather, it was sadness. Harsh sadness. The Man was really upset about something, which, in turn, significantly influenced her own emotions in a similar manner.

She watched him walk silently across the room with some paper towels and a bag in his hands. He knelt down to clean up the mess she had made without shooting her the angry look that she normally received. Smelling him this upset about something ripped her apart inside. Even though he was demanding and domineering sometimes, she loved The Man very much, along with the rest of The Family. She couldn't stand to smell him like this. She rolled over onto her stomach and laid her chin atop her two outstretched front legs. She looked down at the ground as he finished cleaning up after her yet again.

After he had placed the soiled paper towels in the plastic bag, he sighed and stared at her. The terrible scent coming from him massively amplified itself at that precise moment. She couldn't bear to look at him. Then she heard a faint but high-pitched whistle coming from his direction, and her ears reflexively perked up a little. This was The Man's way of calling her to his side. He used to call out her name to get her attention, but her hearing wasn't quite as good as it used to be. She seemed to hear the high pitches more clearly.

The whistle repeated itself. It was time to go upstairs.

She struggled for a few moments, climbing painfully to a standing position. Then she limped obediently over to The Man's side. He patted his leg once, whistled, and walked over to the staircase. She reluctantly followed. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she stared blankly at them, knowing that she would never be able to make it to the top on her own. Not today. The Man did not hesitate in scooping her right up off of the ground and carrying her all the way up. Usually he would wait for her to at least try on her own, but not this time. He placed her down gently on the cold floor.

He said something, but it was too muffled in her ears for her to understand. She didn't need to, though. This was the time when she ate her first meal of the day.

Following along behind The Man, she saw The Woman and The Boy in the kitchen, standing next to each other. They both smelled sad too. But there was something else notable on each of them. The Woman was angry for some reason (she had been a lot lately) and The Boy was giving off a strong odor of confusion, also the case lately.

She kept on walking with her head down to where her dish was waiting for her as always. She had to weave her way a little among the many brown boxes that littered the area, each sealed up tightly. They had been accumulating rapidly during the past few weeks.

This used to be her favorite time of the day. She would anxiously wait for The Man to awaken her, and then she would wag her tail, jump around excitedly, charge upstairs, and devour the food in her dish. Today was different, though. She wasn't excited; she didn't feel like eating; her tail was not wagging.

She took a few bites of the hard, dry food, but nothing more. She knew that if she kept going, it would only reappear later. Then someone in the family would have to clean up after her again. She didn't want that to happen. Looking up from her unfinished food, she found that every member of The Family was staring down at her. A sparkle of light caught the water in The Woman's right eye. The odor of sadness emanating from the three of them was overwhelming. She wanted to smother them with her profound love and unwavering fidelity, cheering them right up as she used to do from time to time.

But she didn't. She could still smell the anger on The Woman and the confusion on The Boy as well. The Woman's anger was a little different, though. Different in that it seemed to be much more directed than the sadness. Directed specifically at The Man. That was something that she had picked up on for quite some time now. The Woman and The Man had always shared occasional exchanges of anger with each other, but nothing had ever lasted for more than a day or so. This time, however, it was only The Woman showing anger at The Man, and it had been lingering for quite some time. The Boy approached her first. He knelt down next to her and squeezed her so hard that she couldn't breathe for a few precious moments. He seemed to be gripping onto her for dear life, as if he had nothing left without her. She affectionately licked his cheek in hopes to ease his apparent suffering, but it only seemed to make him more upset and more confused. Then he leaned in and whispered something (...love?) in her ear and kissed her head.

Her tail was not wagging.

Then The Woman went through the motions of a similar process, the stench of sadness significantly more dense on her (the anger subsided for a moment) than the others. The Woman's scents were usually stronger than The Man's or The Boy's. And this time it was worse than ever before. She quivered uncontrollably as she felt a few drops of wetness drip from The Woman's face onto her head as The Woman kissed her.

Then she let go.

The Man whistled to her and led her into the room where they kept The Riding Machine. She was usually excited to go on rides, but not today. She didn't know what to think or feel. She simply followed The Man and his sadness to The Riding Machine and allowed him to lift her into the back part of it. After The Man sat down in front of her, the machine began to vibrate and then move backwards.

The two of them were off...

As they turned the corner onto The Road, she began to whimper like a small child having a nightmare. She knew what lay at the end of The Road. It was that horrible place where People in plain, white coats probed at her and stuck sharp things into her body. She hated The Bad Place more than anything in the world.

Mr. Wakefield works as a computer programmer in Richmond, Virginia. This story is based on a similar incident he experienced while growing up in New Hampshire. He is currently working towards a degree in Information services, writes short stories in his spare time, and is attempting to publish his first novel.