All That Is Left Behind

I took my dog in my arms, and I made my way to the boy. I was no older than four of five, and there was absolute distress written all over his face.

I made sure to have a good grip on my dog as he could get exited easily, and I knew a lot of people, including children, are easily intimidated by dogs, especially the overly expressive ones.

“Hey there,” I said.

The boy didn’t even look at me.

“Are you lost?” I asked him.

He didn’t turn around, but I knew he heard and understood me as he pointedly put his back to mine. There were silent tears in his eyes, but contrary to most children I’ve encountered, he wasn’t expressing his sadness very openly, which I found quite strange.

“You see,” I began. “My dog is named Miki, and he kept asking me to come around here. I really don’t know why. Do you? Maybe there’s a tennis ball hidden here somewhere. Would you help me look?”

He finally turned around, but his eyes were automatically drawn to Miki.

Miki gave him a doggy grin and waved his tail so hard, his little booty went side to side in my arms.

The boy had brown hair and gorgeous large brown eyes. He was wearing good clean clothes too that fit him perfectly. And he looked at the dog, hypnotized.

“Do you want to pet him?” I asked.

He said nothing, but I knew he heard me. He didn’t look at me, still glued to Miki.

“Here, let me show you how.” Then I spent the next minute showing the boy how to pet a dog.

“Do you want to try?” I asked him.

to Miki. It gave me the strange vibe you get with autistic children. He had problems looking in my eyes, but clearly none in looking in

and spook him, whom eventually caved and gave the

exercise a few times, and he did more and more every time.

question him more about his parents or why he was alone, but I wasn’t even sure he talked, and given how he ignored me when I started with this line of questioning, I decided not to push on too quickly

this communication method was pretty rudimentary, but at least it was

was not crying either, and as minutes went by and he interacted more and more with the dog, his expression slowly melted into one of pure childish glee.

“What is your name?” I asked him.

His smiled disappeared as he looked briefly at me.

don’t want to. I’m Mila. I live with Miki not far from here. Miki loves parks very much, so we came

information first it could make me sound more trustworthy, but I

next to my

away what was going on, and suddenly ignore the kid and turned

took a treat out

his weight from his left paw to his right.

and made him lie down. I had to say it twice until, his desire

this scene

you want to try it?” I

nodded.

did an internal ‘yoop’ as I managed to make the kid

and then

if he was more interested in the dog than me that

took a few minutes for him to get the gist of what had to be done, but he worked it out faster than

treats in a row

so much feeding, but it was working really well, and I had heard the boy say at least four words now, and they were not as hard to get out of him

were all gone, he

Miki