My brothers were gone. I could go right up to my mother now, and get all her attention for myself. No shoving, just me and my mother. I made my way past the fallen boulders to get near her. She didn’t move, even to see me. She didn’t lick, or nuzzle, or even bark at me for having left her. She was just still. Everything was still. All that movement of rocks crashing on trees and trees tumbling on their sides, ground opening up and swallowing again, was over. The violent shaking out of nowhere, just minutes ago, stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Only dusty fine particles moved, filtering through the air and scratching my eyes, eyes that had been sealed until this morning. Now I wanted to reseal them and make everything like it was before, soft and familiar – as long as I was near my mother and her milk, what did it matter if everything was dark? Life had been comfortable. There was no comfort now – I didn’t know what to do.
Seeing didn’t help me figure anything out; in fact, it hurt to keep my eyes open, with sand grating. When I rubbed my paw against my irritated lids it only hurt more. What was the point now, anyway? Did I really want to look at all this? Seeing my family, bloodied and crushed by the moving earth? What should I do? Whenever I had been troubled before, I lay down as close to my mother as I could get, feeling the warmth of her fur, and if I was lucky, the sweet trickle off her teat. Her fur was still there. I cuddled next to her and sucked a little milk dripping off her cold teat.
I wished the ground would open up just once more and swallow me. I couldn’t possibly survive anyway.
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You do a particularly terrific job writing from the dog's pov here. This is such a tricky thing to do, and it's just so believable, so natural. I never once pull away from the story. Really great!
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