Rhino Rules Contest #2: Animal Stories - Wind's Rainbow

Wind's Rainbow

The small human smelled like rainbows and dry grass and mud. The first time, it came so close to the hard things that kept him away from all those smells that he could have touched her with his nose if he’d dared. But he didn’t want to scare her away; didn’t want to not smell her anymore.

The human was a noisy one, its voice full-belly happy, its fur flying, sun-kissed feathers, light as the baby fuzz on his twin’s underbelly when he cleaned her.

His twin scooted farther into the corner, wedging her bony body the way she always did when humans came and she wouldn’t look at him. He could smell the fear on her even from this side of the thing humans called his cage. He didn’t like the word. Didn’t like the sound of it. There was something permanent and abrupt about it; a heavy bone you couldn’t chew dropping to the ground, ringing and ringing.

The small human ran off, and he wanted to go after her, wanted to keep smelling the grass and the rainbows and the dirt with squirmy moving wriggling things he used to dig for, back when he was still a pup. Before the humans with cold eyes took him to the place with the cages in it and no grass.

He nuzzled into his twin’s neck and lay down next to her, giving her the warmth of his flesh. She wouldn’t tell him what it was that made her shake with fear every time one of them came by, and he knew better than to ask. It had been eight moon cycles, if the tiny circle the moonlight came in from was to be believed, and she never once said it..

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He remembered that morning the way he only remembered important things. The old human dragged her away from the cage on a long rope, his twin whining, sliding back on her haunches. He had barked at the human then, couldn’t help himself, and the human kicked him, hard. He couldn’t get up or breathe for a long time after that. His eyes got dark and swimmy, and he couldn’t see anything well enough to trust it. He must have slept then, because next thing he remembered were the long howls of his twin. She smelled like fear and tears and something else he didn’t know. Whatever it was, that something else had hurt her. Was still hurting her. He’d curled up next to her and covered her shaking body with his own, but the smell on her stayed like that, no matter how often he cleaned her. And she never went close to where the humans stood looking at them when they came. Not even when the humans were small.

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He hoped the small human who smelled like grass would come back. He’d been calling it Rainbow in his head. He wondered if all the humans had names. He didn’t know what his name was, or if he’d ever had one. He thought he should have, as some of the other dogs had names, but they all sounded wrong to him anyway–as if they were human names, not dog names–and he didn’t want one of those. He thought he’d want to be called Wind. It felt like the right kind of name. And his twin–he thought of her as Water, quiet and full of tears and so small, she looked like she could fit through the long sticks that kept them inside the cage. If only she dared try.

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He counted sunrises and moonrises by the light that came into the circle. There was something in the way that last small human looked at him that felt right. The way his momma felt deep inside him, her milk smell, and the warmth of her, and safety. The small human felt like that but also different. His momma had a quiet feel to her. He couldn’t remember her making any noise, not even when all the other dogs did, or their cousin coyotes howled in that high pitched nasty way they had. This small human wasn’t quiet. It barked, and its barking sounded good to him, like something he wanted to chase after.

On the seventh sunrise, he smelled Rainbow. He nudged his twin, and, for the first time since they’d found themselves in this strange place, he asked her to trust him. Water looked at him, her sad eyes wary. He felt an energy, a buzz in his blood as Rainbow’s smell got closer. There was a rightness to this human coming back. None of them had ever come back before. His tail moved, just a small back and forth, as if warding off a fly. He wanted so badly to behave, to be good for the small human, he held himself in check.

“Momma! This is the one who likes me, look!”

He noticed an older human next to Rainbow and swallowed his fear. This one didn’t smell like all the good things outside. This one smelled the way Water did when she came back that day. Fear and salt water. He looked up at the larger human, the pup’s momma, he guessed. Her eyes darted around the cage then back to him. He didn’t know what the small human said, but it sounded happy and he felt the hope swell in his heart. But he could tell this human was in charge, not Rainbow, and the way this one was looking at him made him afraid. This one was broken, the way Water was.

The human made itself smaller, and he stuck his nose through the sticks, nuzzling into the human the way he did with his Twin; a comfort. The fear smell got smaller. Rainbow was barking again, rapid fire, pup-like. He made his tail move faster and faster. The broken human took out a length of rope and he felt it, knew it in every cell that he was about to leave this cage place, that he would go to where he could smell the grass and the mud and the squirmy things again, and chase after happy barking of Rainbow….

He felt his twin brush against him and his tail dropped. He’d somehow forgotten about his twin.
Water nudged at him, pushing him to where the humans were with her skinny body, telling him to go, that it was alright. Only it wasn’t alright. He sat down, facing his twin, letting her know that he wasn’t leaving. She needed him to keep her warm….

He heard the loud noise and looked up. The old human he knew, the one who smelled of dog pee and something acrid and pungent, some food he ate that made smoke, moved all the sticks away. Rainbow came in and put a rope around his twin’s neck, and the sad one tied a rope around his own. His heart beat fast, full to bursting. He wanted to jump and run and chase and smell. He wanted to taste the grass smell on Rainbow with his tongue, but he made himself walk slowly. And he kept his tail from moving too much, and the barks that wanted to be let out, he kept that in too. He hoped the small human would be alright with him making noise someday and maybe even let him dig for the squirmy things in the mud or roll around in it. He felt it would, but he didn’t dare risk it just yet….

He felt the opening to the world like a shock, all light and brightness and smells and wind from everything moving against his fur, making his skin tingle and tickle. He sniffed at Water and the fear smell was still there, but something else too. Something that smelled like play, like wanting to run. And for the first time since he lost the warm milk smell of his momma, he felt light everywhere. He felt like those big noisy things that didn’t seem to use their back paws for anything, and their fur let them float above the ground in a strange way. There was a lightness to them, always a lightness….

“The boy looks like he’d run like the wind, if we let him, momma!” the little human said.
“Wind it is, Becks. Wind it is.”

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_{img credit: unsplash @chrisrossharris}

With many thanks to the fantastic folks at the writers block fiction workshop. You can find your way there by clicking below: