I heard the ceremonial sounds of the dog scratching at the door, the perky encouragement from his owner getting said pooch psyched for the walk, and the familiar creak of the door opening. What normally follows is the rushed gallop of feet down the stairs and the jingle-jangle of collar tags and the fading sound of the parade into the morning. Today, there was the door squeak, them an ominous silence. Even half asleep, I was a little curious as to what was happening.
Softly a voice muttered,"Damnit", another brief pause, then the brash, loud, somewhat disturbing orchestra of what sounded like a car accident between two vehicles made of wood instead of metal. There is only one flight of stairs, roughly 8 vertical feet, but the continuity of sound gave one the impression the commotion was happening over the course of a grand staircase. On and on, the banging went, growing louder, and briefly the plummeting mass broke the shadow and sunbeam patterns in my room. Then it was quiet. The smell of cold, morning dust came in through the window.
Curiosity got the better of me and I peeked out the window to see girl and dog melded into one misshapen mass, a furry leg kicking here, a human leg kicking there. For some reason, my brain registered this in the "humor" column before the "concern" column, and I actually had to bite my lip to not laugh. The squirming ball unraveled itself and both dog and girl were fine and I'm pretty sure I didn't get caught watching the whole episode.
A few scolding words were issued towards the dog's propensity for impatience, the jingle drifted into the morning, and all was quiet again.
I tried to go back to sleep but I kept giggling thinking of the human/canine pod thrashing about. Thinking about it at noon with all my faculties functioning, I feel bad for my neighbor and a bit selfish for not showing more concern; at 6 AM I was too tired and unalert to be anything but giddy. Face it, we aren't at our best 5 minutes out of sleep.
The moral of the story: if you're going to fall down a flight of stairs, please do so after 9 AM.
