I hold the early evening in the wrinkles of my fingertips. Press them out on paper, and see my day unfold in the sheet. The oils from the refrigerated leftover meat that grew gradually warmer in my hands, and the grease from the bicycle’s chain that I re-attached in the middle of the street in front of the headlights of my car. Sweat on my cardigan and wet dirt digging into the spaces between my toes, climbing up the backs of my pants. All of these remnants, reminders of how somewhere in those woods, in this rain, that dog is shivering.

When Tipper first ran, it was still light out. Those four legs flying down the street in defiance. Always a skiddish dog, I knew she’d bolt if we moved, but a step forward was taken and it sent her soaring down the sidewalk. A few neighbors joined the chase and we nearly had her, but her nitro button was waiting to be pressed and she vanished into the woods.

I whistled and yelled, but to no avail. The sun sank, paying no mind to the search it was sabotaging. I emerged from behind the houses, suburban sprawl below my feet. Footprints of mud, the only thing I carried away from the woods. No dog in my arms, no heroic return, head tilted towards the ground, and defeat in my every forward step. Shredded, that’s how I felt, completely deflated in knowing exactly how large the world can seem. Needles in haystacks, those would be easier to find.

The mother and daughter of the family that owns the dog, the people whose child I pick up from school every day, joined me in the search with a flashlight and some shredded meat. The girl and I took to walking, the mother to driving elsewhere. We soon realized that walking was only walking. No glimmer of hope was leading us in the direction of the dog. We roamed the dark golf course until the woods were a thing of the past. I snuck up on a cat on the fairway, simply for its legs and the way they moved in the dark, disheartened as soon as its stealth stole the delusion that it was a dog. Back in the street, back by my car, the bike chain got stuck and her frustration mounted. Each failed attempt to pedal spiked her mood and I could see she was going to destroy herself more every time she failed to push a pedal. 

“You can drive right?” I knew she could. Nineteen years old, but lacking her parents’ trust was what kept her from a license. That and a slew of mood disorders and cognitive inhibitions that I won’t get into. She nodded.

“Take my car. Keys are in the ignition. I’ll ride your bike behind you.”

So I pedaled home behind my own car. The spotlights of suburbia telling only the tale of a young girl chasing a car on her bike, not knowing the intricate web woven around all that was happening. I couldn’t help but imagine that dog bolting out from behind some trees to become a pancake on the pavement as my hair flowed gracefully behind me with each inch down the street.