Kate
A love story
“Where the hell is my damned dog?!?” I screamed, at the top of my lungs. “Charlie! CHARLIE!” yelling into the wind. Where the hell had he gone?
I couldn’t stand thinking my friends might have been right… That a blind woman hiking the Appalachian Trail alone was a bad idea. But, Charlie and I had trained… We were a team. (Were being the operative word.) Where the hell had he gone? “He’d better not be off humping a seductive German Shepherd!”
“Fucking April showers my ass! The rain had been pummeling me for hours, and Charlie was gone. I admit it, I crumbled! I dropped onto a boulder and fell apart, sobbing. We’d been on the trail for two days and I was fairly confident of my location, but I’d go off the side of the mountain without Charlie. Where the hell did he go?!?
I decided the best thing to do would be to set up camp right where I was. Was I in the middle of the trail or on the edge? If I rolled over in my sleep would I tumble off the mountain? Who knew? But at that point, I didn’t care. My guide dog had deserted me and I was soaked to the bone. A quick death began to sound like heaven! (Pun intended. See, I still had my sense of humor.)
Maybe Charlie would return, or another hiker, also not smart enough to take cover in a downpour, would come along in the morning. (Hopefully, not a serial killer!)
