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.

It gave me the strange vibe you get with autistic children. He had problems looking in my eyes, but clearly none in looking in a dog’s eyes, so I used this to try to open a

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

repeated the exercise a few times, and

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 as I feared he’d stopped communicating altogether.

this communication method was pretty rudimentary, but at

and he interacted more and more with the dog,

name?” I asked him.

disappeared as he looked briefly at me.

want to. I’m Mila. I live with Miki not far from here. Miki loves parks

information first it could make me sound more trustworthy, but I wasn’t sure if this

into my bag, and next to my drawing pad, I found a little

what was going on, and suddenly ignore the kid and turned to me.

I took a treat out

hardly contain his excitement and sat, shaking his weight from his left paw to

say it twice until, his desire for the biscuit overcame his excitement and then I gave it to

this scene in

to try it?”

He nodded.

the kid

“You have to tell him to sit though,” I said as Miki was now back on his paws going in circles and then sitting, but going back up and putting his paws

guessed that if he was more interested in the dog than me

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

feeding five treats in a row to

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

gone,

you know what Miki loves?” I