Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Geri,” he said, not turning from what he was doing, “get a mat.”
The dog on the left went immediately to a basket filled with yoga mats and brought one back and sat it down in front of Hannah, waiting.
“Thank you,” she said, taking it and giving the dog a pat on the head. He let her, licked her hand, and then returned to where he’d been seated beside Jake, who was lying to the right of Kurt.
When Hannah wanted to lie there, the dog moved so she could spread out the mat, and then took up his same position beside her. The other dog, whose name was Freki, was to the left of Harper, who was to the left of Kola, who was on the other side of Kurt. They were the quietest dogs I’d ever seen.
“Okay, here we go,” Kurt announced, and then passed the binoculars to Jake. “You see the foxes right at the base of the oak tree?”
It took Jake a moment, and then he made the gasp of seeing a wild creature in its natural environment. “Ohmygod, they’re so pretty.”
The binoculars went to Hannah next, then back to Kurt, then were handed off to Kola, and then to Harper.
“The deer come in the morning,” Kurt explained, sitting up and crossing his long legs, smiling at the kids as they moved to sit in a circle around him, Hannah moving her dress to the side, her legs under her. “And that’s cool. I feed them in the winter, and there are two sides to that argument.”
“Like, is it good to have them dependent on you?” Harper began after Kurt waited a moment. “If they can’t provide for themselves, aren’t you postponing the inevitable?”
Kurt nodded and then looked at Jake.
“Yeah, but we’ve encroached on their habitat and killed off their natural predators who would keep their numbers balanced, so aren’t we responsible?”
“Excellent point,” Kurt agreed, smiling. “I mean, if you eradicate an apex predator, that messes with all kinds of things. That’s why we shouldn’t get rid of wolves or sharks or bears or whatever. We have to take all conservation, even with the animals that scare us, seriously.”
“Nature should be left alone,” Jake concluded.
“Yeah, but what about those wildlife photographers who can hear a cheetah mom calling for her babies, and the guys filming know where they are, but she doesn’t. Shouldn’t they interfere and reunite them since cheetah numbers are getting smaller and smaller?”
“But isn’t extinction part of the cycle of life?” Kola questioned him.
“A normal cycle, sure,” Kurt agreed. “But what about animals that man specifically has made extinct? That’s not the normal cycle, yeah?”
“This is like us, right?” Harper asked him. “If things happen, normal things, like losing a grandparent, that is a part of life. They’re older, we’re younger, so we grieve, but it makes sense. But us getting attacked, that was out of a normal cycle.”
Kurt grinned at him. “You’re all much too smart for me, but yeah, that would be it.”
Hannah squinted at him. “Do you think we’re messed up?”
“I think figuring out how you felt then and how you feel now is important,” he told her as Freki moved to his side and lay down, head on his paws. “Like for me, about what, ten? No, eight years ago, I had a patient who was a lot sicker than I was led to believe by a colleague who referred him to me.”
“So you had this guy pawned off on you?” Jake asked, sounding concerned.
“More like my colleague didn’t feel he could do anything more for him, so he sent him to me,” Kurt clarified gently. “But one day he came to therapy and attacked me with a knife and almost killed me.”
“Oh,” Hannah whimpered, and Geri went and lay down beside her, his head in her lap. She immediately began to pet him as Dot tumbled into Jake’s lap and got comfortable.
“So many stitches, so long in the hospital,” Kurt told them. “And when I got out, I realized that to keep helping people, I needed to help myself first. Get better outside and in.”
“And the dogs, right?” Kola sounded certain.
He nodded. “The dogs are a sort of external safety blanket, a visual reinforcement to remind me that it can never happen again.”
“Because they won’t let you get hurt,” Harper surmised.
“That’s right. And as you can see, they’re sweet dogs, but they’re vigilant too.”
“It’s great that they don’t go after the foxes,” Hannah told him.
“No, they don’t care about the wildlife,” he said, exhaling. “Only doofus there.”
Jake was petting the doofus, who had rolled over in his lap and presented him with her belly.
“Good God,” Kurt grumbled, looking at Freki, who raised his head to Kurt and looked just as disgusted as his person.
I chuckled as Kurt asked the kids what had happened on the night in question.