Falling Leaves, Falling Tears

I sat in a tree and just stared blankly out at the world around me, carpeted with leaves of yellow, orange, gold, and fire red. Somehow, nothing could bring a smile to my face. I still felt like I had buried Angel yesterday, when it was really six days ago. I missed her, so very much. Sure, she was only a rabbit, but I loved her more than anything in the world. She was in so many ways, like a dog. The dog I always wanted, but never got. My parents were already planning on getting me another rabbit, not to replace her, but to fill the empty hole in my heart that Angel had taken with her when she died. It needed to be filled with cuddles, hugs, tongue kisses, and lots of love. I listened solemnly to Taylor Swift's album Red on shuffle on my MP3 player as I watched the leaves fall gently to the ground from the trees around me. I felt the tears well up in my eyes and then trickle and fall down my cheeks just as gently as the leaves. I wiped them away violently, telling myself I had to stop crying at some point. My silent reverie was broken by a bark, or rather a yap. I yanked my earbuds out and looked down at the ground in puzzlement. At the foot of the tree I saw a fluffy little Pomeranian with white fur and orange or ginger spots and facial markings on it. She was so adorable, my heart melted and caused a smile to appear and laugh bubble up from inside.

"Why hello there." I cooed. "What are you doing here little one, you lost?" I figured it must be lost, there was no one around that I knew of that owned any Pomeranians. The little dog just barked at me again and I decided to climb out of my tree and see if I could find a color on her or some form of identification. I put my MP3 player away into the pockets of my new American Eagle jeans that I had just recently gotten from a thrift store and then climbed down from my perch. The dog didn't show any signs of aggression, so I introduced myself by holding my hand out, open, so she could sniff me. She not only sniffed me, but also began licking my hand enthusiastically. I couldn't help but laugh, I must've been so deprived of tongue kisses that I had become ticklish to tongues. I looked at the Pommie's neck and saw no collar, so I checked the skin to see if there was a chip embedded in her, but from what I could tell, there wasn't one. Odd. I wondered if the dog knew any commands so I tried "Heel" to see if she'd follow me, sure enough, she did. Strange. She was trained, or so it seemed. Surely this dog was loved by someone because they'd taken the time to train her. Two weeks passed and we still hadn't heard anything from anyone who wanted to inquire after the dog. My parents were thinking about taking the Pomeranian to a pound and have them try to get it adopted while I was secretly plotting various ways to convince them to let me own the pommie, who I was already secretly calling Autumn. One day, my parents set me out to go rake the leaves in our yard. I had let Autumn out to run around and she just sat there, waiting and watching as I raked the leaves up in one nice tidy pile. The instant my back was turned, I heard the unmistakable sound of something leaping into my pile. I turn around and saw just about the cutest thing, if I'd had a camera, this picture would be just too adorable. Autumn was looking up at me, smiling broadly from among the now messed up pile of leaves and atop her head was a golden brown maple leaf. It was the cutest thing ever. "Stay." I told her, hoping vainly that she'd stay there while I ran back to the house to grab my camera. As I rushed back, I knew that there was no chance I could possibly be as lucky as to find her still in that adorable pose in the leaf pile, but as I approached with my camera ready, I was stunned to find her still there. I laughed and knelt down and took several pictures of her. After I had taken enough pictures, I turned the camera off and put the lens cap back on and just laughed at her as I cleared the leaves off.

"You're a really good girl, you know that?" I told her, scratching her head and then planting a kiss on top of it. Before going back inside, I took her over to the fenced off kennel area we had in our back yard near the persimmon tree and put her in, then I went back inside to show the pictures off to my parents, hoping that maybe Autumn's adorableness would somehow win over my parent's hearts like it had mine.

As it turned out, they were already planning on keeping her since no one had claimed her. We suspect she may have been abandoned by someone who was suffering from the recession and could no longer afford to keep her, but whatever the case may be, we love her to pieces and she our little bundle of Autumn joy.