Dog

Dog. Man's best friend. A child's biggest fear when it's a roaming horse of a German Shepard and you're out on the wide open playground behind the military barracks apartments in Stuttgart Germany. I was the only kid brave enough to get off the monkey bars when this big stray mostly black German Shepard wandered through the playground chasing all my playmates to the safety of the bars and then disappeared around the apartment building corner. Someone had to venture out and I had punched Billy Hammond, the tough neighborhood bully, in the nose, so I hesitatingly walked up the hill to the sidewalk and walked softly, tentatively on the sidewalk towards the corner of the 3-story nondescript tan colored apartment building the knot in my gut twisting tighter and tighter the closer I got to the corner hoping please God let him not be there. Is he right around the corner? Will he tear my arm off and then my face? What will that feel like? Will anyone be able to save me? It's amazing the thoughts you think when you might DIE! As I came almost to the corner I stopped. THERE HE WAS. He had come around the corner first as surprised as me and I was frozen face to face with the beast that would end my existence in a few seconds of furious wild snarling teeth and blood and flesh. Mine! Shit! I was frozen, immovable like the 3-snowball snowmen I used to build before my certain and imminent demise. And then he moved TOWARDS ME! I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move! Two more steps and it would be all over. And I had never kissed Paula Jones. One more step and he lunged... up... onto my shoulders with his heavy paws the weight pressing my little 58 pound body towards the hard grey pavement I had run on playing tag or hide-and-seek so many times. I winced and closed my eyes and braced for the pain of the enormous white fangs tearing into my cheeks. Aiiiee, what the... Warm? Wet? Slobber? I opened my eyes to big brown glassy almost beautiful marble eyes smiling. At Me! I'm not dead?! NO. He's licking me! and I'm snickering and giggling as his heated tongue continues to lap across my face and ears and neck. Soon the other kids are surrounding me and I am not dead. No. I am a hero! And I have a new friend. And his name is King.