{"sf1_id":542620,"sf2_id":null,"title":"Billie Jean","author":"Summerfox","words":1124,"posted_at":"2013-05-24T19:11:00.000Z","tags":["Black Labrador","Snowshoe Hare","Story"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/542620-billie-jean","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/542620","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=542620\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"In loving memory of the ones we leave behind.\nThey will stay with us, always.","content":"Winter knew that something was amiss from the moment he came home.\u0026nbsp; Both his parents were home from work and the grave silence of the house was an ill omen.\u0026nbsp; They both looked up at the little snowshoe hare as he entered the room.\u0026nbsp; He tossed his backpack to the floor.\n\n\"Where's Billie?\" Winter asked, but due to his mild speech impediment it came out sounding like 'Whuh's Biwwie?'\u0026nbsp; At 8 years old, he still had a mild slur in his speech.\u0026nbsp; It got better over time with speech therapy but his nickname \"Winter\" stuck with him forever because he had trouble pronouncing his own name, Whitaker.\u0026nbsp; \"Whit-uh\"\n\nHis parents exchanged a glance.\u0026nbsp; His father, still dressed in his ACU from work, furrowed his brow and sighed deeply.\u0026nbsp; Winter noticed the red ring around his mother's eyes.\u0026nbsp; She had been crying earlier.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Winter felt an icy pit in his stomach and his palms begin to perspire.\u0026nbsp; Neither parent answered him.\n\n\"Mom? Where's Billie?\" he asked again.\u0026nbsp; Billie (or Billie Jean) was the family dog, a black Labrador retriever.\u0026nbsp;\n\nHis father didn't say anything.\u0026nbsp; His mother's eyes began to tear up.\n\n\"We took Billie to the vet,\" she said, her voice gravelly and quiet.\n\n\"Why?\" Winter asked, alarmed, \"Is she okay?\"\n\nShe shook her head softly.\u0026nbsp; Her husband spoke in her place.\u0026nbsp; \"Billie had a heart attack this morning.\u0026nbsp; We didn't make it to the vet in time.\"\n\nThe sudden news hit Winter like a tidal wave and he stood there in the doorway, trying to absorb the impact.\u0026nbsp; He refused to accept that his dog, his friend and companion long before he was even able to speak or crawl, was gone.\u0026nbsp; But she was.\n\nShe had already aged to a mature dog by the time Winter was born, growing ever older as Winter grew up.\u0026nbsp; He had never noticed anything wrong with her.\u0026nbsp; She seemed as happy and boisterous as she had always been, if not a little tired sometimes.\u0026nbsp; He hadn't even noticed the light graying around her muzzle, over looking it as one would the wallpaper as a part of the scenery.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; He had overlooked Billie's aging and the inevitability of her death by choosing to ignore it.\u0026nbsp; He could never imagine losing his dog, nor his mother or father.\u0026nbsp; Death was retribution for the bad guys and villains in movies.\u0026nbsp; Death was a slapstick joke in cartoons where the characters would all come back alive and well in the next episode.\u0026nbsp;\n\n\"I want to go see Billie,\" Winter said after a moment.\n\n\"Billie's gone, Whit,\" his father said.\n\nWinter ignored his father's words.\u0026nbsp; They were about as real as Death had been prior to his arrival home.\n\n\"I want to see Billie!\" he said again, a little louder and indignantly.\n\nHis father stood up.\u0026nbsp; There was a sunken, stern look in his face as he glowered down at the cub.\u0026nbsp; Still dressed in his military uniform, he looked infinitely taller and imposing to Winter, yet defeated and broken.\u0026nbsp;\n\n\"Billie died, Whit,\" his father said plainly with little flecks of impatience in his voice.\n\nWinter's little paws curled into fists. \u0026nbsp;Tears of hot anger brimmed in his eyes.\u0026nbsp; He wanted to refuse what he heard.\u0026nbsp; Death was becoming to him what he had always feared it had been.\u0026nbsp; Not the running joke or retribution in movies but the lurking, omnipresent thief of the living. It was the verity that all living things will die.\u0026nbsp;\n\nBillie was dead.\u0026nbsp; Billie was gone.\u0026nbsp; Her last act on Earth was routine; to lay her head on the side of Winter's bed until he woke up.\u0026nbsp; She had escorted him to the door, seeing her little hare cub off to school before going back to her bed for the last time.\u0026nbsp; He realized in that moment that she would never be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.\u0026nbsp; There would be no more walks around the neighborhood with Billie leading the way.\u0026nbsp; No more trips through the play park and teasing the two ornery geese behind the fence on the way home.\u0026nbsp; Death had come in and taken her away while Winter was at school, oblivious to the intrusion.\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\n\nAs Winter looked up at his towering father, he felt overwhelming anger.\u0026nbsp; He felt it in his fists and in his head, boiling over and channeling throughout his body.\u0026nbsp; He was angry at his father's cold callousness.\u0026nbsp; The universal indifference of Death.\u0026nbsp; Tears stung his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.\n\nSuddenly, Winter let out a wild, shrill shriek.\u0026nbsp; He screamed of pain and sorrow and loss and misplaced adolescent rage.\u0026nbsp; He lunged at his father, like a David at Goliath.\u0026nbsp; He kicked at his father's shins and punched at his waist, pounding his tiny fists against a brick wall.\u0026nbsp; His father held him back by the shoulders and kneeled down to face the cub.\n\nWinter shook softly.\u0026nbsp; The anger was still fresh but his burst of energy had run out.\u0026nbsp; He hung his head and cried, his face red and scrunched, tears rolling down his cheeks and hanging in beads on his quivering whiskers.\u0026nbsp; For a moment, he expected words of comfort or some kind of solace from his father.\u0026nbsp; He looked up into his father's stern, angry eyes and saw none to be given.\n\n\"Go to your room and don't come down until supper.\"\n\nHe looked to his mother.\u0026nbsp; She was looking out of the window, crying gently again.\u0026nbsp; He wouldn't understand through his own grief that she had lost a friend too.\n\nWinter did as he was told but ran up the stairs stomping his paws and slammed the door.\u0026nbsp; He threw himself on the bed and wailed into a pillow, leaving the anguished imprint of his eyes, nose, and mouth on it.\u0026nbsp; He stayed there until the sun began to set and his room was filled with the dim, gray blue ambiance of the rain outside.\u0026nbsp; He stayed in bed, watching the rain leave trails down his window and listening to his mother cooking downstairs.\u0026nbsp; He lay alone with his thoughts of Billie, remembering her as the heartache gnawed at his chest. \u0026nbsp;\n\nAs time went on, Winter accepted Billie's passing and helped honor her memory with a little plaque in the backyard.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Not long after, there was another Billie in his life (Billie Holiday, a Welsh Corgi) which Winter learned to love as much as he had his first dog.\u0026nbsp; He grew to accept Death as a part of Life, never forgetting the fragility of existence.\u0026nbsp; How brief life passes and how rapidly a life can be snuffed out.\u0026nbsp; He never forgot Billie Jean.\u0026nbsp; But the hardest part of letting her go was never getting a chance to say goodbye.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}