Misty

        "Bad dog," she says to me in her raspy, nasty voice.  She is ugly, she is mean, and I am afraid.  My owners don't acknowledge her, and I don't know why.  She is here all the time, she always watches.  She speaks to them sometimes, but they don't seem to know it. 

        Sometimes when I see her she is even uglier than usual.  Her eyes are milky and bulge from their sockets, her body is distended and bloated, her skin is purple with burst capillaries.  I think she may have stayed in the water too long, maybe even here.  When I see her like that, I am more afraid than usual.  Her intentions are never good, but when she looks like that, she really means harm.  Once when she was like that, she caressed my lady owner's cheek and whispered in her ear while my lady was by the sink rinsing food.  I barked at her, but my lady owner thought I was barking at her, and told me to hush.  The ugly lady smiled at me then for the first time, her teeth showing through her cheeks.  I yelped and ran away.  My lady thought I was scared of her, and followed me to comfort me.  When my master came home she was angry with him, and I don't think she was before the bad lady talked to her.  I think she tries to make them hate.

        I used to be a proud dog, a confident one.  She was here even when they brought me here as a puppy.  I thought there was something weird about her because she looks misty, but she lived here before me so what could I do?  She didn't bother me often as a puppy, she even seemed nice sometimes.  My teeth were growing like puppy's do, and she gave me things to chew on.  I never thought she was doing it to get me in trouble, but now I know she was.  Sometimes my owners would wonder how I got ahold of things that were put away or way up high.  One day I put it together how bad things would always happen when she was interfering, and I started to bark at her.  She smiled at me, and it was then I realized how ugly and mean she was.

          My owners don't know about her, so they think there's something wrong with me.  They must see how I always obey, and don't get in puppy trouble any more.  My muzzle has turned white, and me not three years old yet.  They think I bark at shadows, they see how I am afraid all the time.  They don't know how scary she's gotten, how she watches all the time.  She stands near their bedroom and stares at them while they sleep.  I think she means to hurt them, or make them hurt each other.

          My owners have been arguing a lot, and I heard them notice they only do that when they're home most of the time, so they decided to take a day trip.  They brought me with them to the beach.  We played frisbee in the sand, I never had so much fun before.  I forgot all about her until we got home.  "Bad dog," she said, and grinned her gruesome grin.  I curled up under the coffee table and squeezed my eyes shut until I fell asleep.  I awoke to my owners bringing out Halloween decorations from the attic.  Some papers fell out when my master dragged the big box out.  They peered at them with bright interest, wondering what had happened before they were here.  All the scattered papers turned out to be divorce proceedings-from ten different couples.  They looked at each other, concern written on their faces.

          So they packed and left the house I grew up in, and when I saw her last she wore a frown.  We drove far and long, me with a grin of my own for a change.  We came to a place where there was cold white stuff on the ground, and I pranced and rolled-they laughed and laughed.  We went into the new house and I explored happily, so happy to be away from the mean and ugly lady.  I came upon their new big bedroom, and there was a little boy.  I wasn't fooled this time-he was misty.  I barked at him and he smiled at me.