I am at my home alone right now. My parents left to see some of their friends. My sister is staying over at one of her friend’s house. My dog is the only thing at home with me. I don’t really know what to do right now. I could play guitar, but whenever I pick it up, I just put it back down again. I’m facing writer’s block so I just end up playing a couple random notes and nothing comes to mind. Somehow I have so many things to do, so many options, but when I’m bored, nothing seems appealing. I could listen to music, but I’ve listened to my favorite songs so much they get boring. I could play video games, but I’m so bad at them that it feels useless to even try and win. I scroll through Youtube seeing all of the millions of videos uploaded, but for some reason none of them interest me. Everything seems boring when you’re bored.
I click on a video that I remember being funny, but this time I don’t even crack a smile. But I knew it was going to be the most entertaining thing I could find, so I continue to watch it anyway.
Through the headphones I hear what I think is was my phone buzz. So I get up to check my phone. There are no texts, no calls, no notifications. I decide to play back the last few seconds of the video. It might have been coming from the video, but it wasn’t. I really don’t know where it came from, I know my parents wouldn’t have left their phones at home, nor would my sister. So I figure it was nothing and continue the video.
A few minutes later, I hear another sound. This time it doesn’t sound like a phone buzz. It sounds like glass being shattered on the ground. I know it came from outside my room. I leave my room and look around for a while, trying to figure out what the sound was, and where it came from. Was it really nothing? With my headphones on, the sound was so faint that it was hard to tell.
I go back into my room and put my headphones back on, but I don’t play the video. I just wait there for 45 minutes. I don’t hear anything. I finally give up and decide to play the video. But I still keep waiting for the sound, not paying any attention to the video. I do this for 25 minutes. Nothing.
I end up convincing myself again that it was nothing and just watch the video. A few minutes go by when I hear people talking. I hear people having a conversation. This time it’s definitely not nothing, I know I hear something. I run out of my door to find out what it was. But the origin of the sound quickly becomes the least of my worries.
My dog isn’t on the couch.
I start searching for my dog, not really thinking much of it at first. But the more I search, the more I panic. I look in as many places as possible, but my dog isn’t to be found. I start calling her name. I keep looking for where she is: I look in places I know she wouldn’t go, and places I’ve already checked ten times, but I choose to look again. The more I look, the more I lose hope. I keep looking in the same places. I search every inch of my house, but my dog isn’t anywhere. I feel my eyes tearing up. I eventually stopped looking. I know she isn’t anywhere to be found.
I sit on the floor for a while. Maybe an hour.
Finally, my parents come home. I tell them about the dog being gone.
“What dog?”
“You know, mom. Spottie, the dog that we have had for almost a year.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” my mom says with clear confusion in her voice. “We have never had a pet dog.”
