Angel Dog

33 🐾 Meet Again

God came and went to this dimension of heaven often.

And as if to prove a point, he came the day after Ginger and Riley left. He changed the land, adding a vast collection of flowerbeds and rocky peaked slopes for the dogs to explore, and then moved onto doling out more halos.

In usual fashion, only specific recently-died dogs received them. An onlooking Gypsy even noticed God bend down to place a halo over a puppy's head.

She then realized that those were other Guardian Angel dogs, just like her. In the heavenly orange wash of evening, she recalled how Ghost, in his own way, had been her Guardian Angel.

Kenny had freed her from the kennels, and then Ace. Because of that, Gypsy got to keep living. She'd gotten a second chance.

Just like Ginger and Riley did. I wonder where they're at now. She'd thought about asking God, but he had just recently left. And in the coming weeks, Gypsy felt the impulse to bother him about this less and less. Because she'd often took up his time with a different question.

When's Ace coming? It had felt like a million lifetimes. At times, she felt bitter and jealous of Ace's opportunity to live on- meeting other aging dogs in life, with the ability to reproduce and interact with animals of other species.

But deep down, she didn't want any of that anymore. She just wanted the cream-and-black husky himself.

Gypsy was so tired of waiting, and of regrets long suppressed. The opportunity of having a life with Ace was robbed from me.

It's a funny thing, isn't it? We can have everything we want, and always find ourselves wanting more. Never having enough.

Well, on the night that Ace came, Gypsy realized that wasn't necessarily true.

Because her heart swelled with liquid gold, and she realized- she knew. Something had changed, like when she'd frozen and felt Bronx's presence amongst the dogs here.

But this was different. It was a profound, unavoidable excitement, caused by unexplainable perception. And right then, under the citrus tango-orange sky, she knew Ace had come.

"Ace is here! Hurry!" The she-dog hardly waited on her puppies, rousing them with a shiver of excitement. Gypsy's tail wagged so hard that it pounded against the earth.

"Star and Kiwi, follow me!" The words were thrown carelessly over her shoulder. The angel-dog felt some of her old recklessness come back, as she stretched her legs to their full length in a pounding run.

It didn't matter here. There were no roads, no humans to scream at them, no unexpected rocks and twigs hidden in the grass to trip her up. Instead, as she crested the rise of the hill bordering their den in the forest, the land opened up in front of her.

It was flaming tawny underneath the spilling, dying sun. A lovely time for sun-soaked napping.

But Gypsy was speeding down the hill on flying paws, puppies following slower behind. Dogs asleep all over the landscape lifted their heads, and one even barked loudly over at her as she passed.

"Someone you know has come, eh? I know that feeling." A fluffy tan dog blinked from amongst the tall golden grasses, but didn't rise. Gypsy realized there were two other dogs sleeping near her as well, but they simply watched with sympathetic smiles as she passed.