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.

gaze automatically 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

finally both sat on the grass, I sat Miki in between us, keeping my hand on him to make sure he would not get too close to the kid and spook him, whom eventually caved and gave the first pet. It was short and just one finger on the forehead for maybe two seconds, then he

few times, and he did more and

to 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

rudimentary, but at

as minutes went by and he interacted more and more

“What is your name?” I

he looked briefly at

okay, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m Mila. I live with Miki not far from here. Miki loves parks very much, so we came here for a bit

thought that if I shared information first it could make me sound more trustworthy, but I wasn’t sure if this technique worked with children.

next to my drawing pad, I found

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

I took a treat out slowly,

sat, shaking his

to say it twice until, his

looked at this scene

“Do you want to try it?” I asked.

He nodded.

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

was now back on his paws going in circles and then

a lot of coaxing out of me to finally make the kid talk. I guessed that if he was

get the gist of what had to be done, but he worked it

ended up feeding five treats

say at least four words now, and they were not as hard to get out of him than

treats were all gone, he looked at

you know what Miki loves?” I asked