Filler Stuff -- Hidden

This is something I left on jo(e)'s blog a year and a half ago when she posted a writing exercise with the word "hidden."

Hidden.

The dog scratches. I part her black fur, seeking the flea I think is there. A sense of movement among the soft tangles. I pinch, miss. The flea errs, straying onto the lightly furred belly. I grab. Success! One less flea, surely one less itch.

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Later we walk in twilight, my dogs and I. She with the white ruff remains visible. The other, tawny in daylight, becomes a shadow in the night. I feel her slip through the night, reliving the history of her kind, but I do not see her. I call, and her eyes shine green in the streetlight as she returns to me.

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Soon my dogs will be hidden from my sight forever, for they are aging. Will I feel them still? One I think will remain. Or perhaps she will return in another body. Will I see her spirit there, or will it remain hidden? And the other? I sense her future lies in another direction, without me, hidden from me during the remainder of my body’s lifetime. We are friends, but we are not of the same soul-plane.