The Gray Door
Prison, regardless if it’s a prison of the brain or a prison of the body, is taxing on the soul of a small dog. Chin minutes become Chin hours, which become Chin days. The air is always heavy with sadness, the food is mealy and tasteless and the smell is so bad that it sticks to everything… including the inside of a dog’s nose. There is so little light that your eyes become sensitive to what little brightness the Sun can push through to where you are.
Cages are a cell, so dark and dank with the odor of dog accidents that your fur turns color from white to tan very quickly. In this prison, this place that calls itself a “Shelter”, there is no playtime, no happiness, no woo’s of joy or spins of excitement. Every moment of every day is filled with thoughts of your loved ones, your pack, your past and what your future might hold. Hope hovers above you, trying to extend a hand down and help to keep your spirits up… but even hope is greasy and slippery in prison. Just when you think all is lost and your future likes in this place of misery, you find a small glimmer of tomorrow hiding in the eyes of a small child that you love.
Auntie Sophie laid on the filthy cage floor so that Butch Chin could rest his head on her soft fur and not on the disgust that surrounded them on all sides. She lightly licked and groomed his ears and head as he tried to sleep. It was good that they were together in this place… she imagined how horrible it would be if they were alone or separated again. Butch looked up at her and forced a weak… and very fake… smile.
“I am sorry Auntie”, he said in a very small voice.
Sophie cocked her head ever so slightly at an angle and looked puzzled, “And why would YOU be sorry, my beautiful boy” she asked, smiling back at him. She didn’t want Butch to realize that she was just as afraid and uncertain as he was. She had to be his strength in this place, for she was his source of light and hope.
“I peed and pooped on our cage floor, Auntie… and I am sorry”, he said with an ashamed and sad tone. “I know you have to smell it and I know you are laying over it. I don’t understand why the peoples here do not come and let us go out into their yard that goes on forever so we can run and play and poop like a proper Chin.”
Auntie Sophie felt for her nephew. He was much too small to be in this very awful place. Someday has certainly fixed them this time with his lies and trickery. How low he was, using a mere child as a pawn to get his way and get back at the Oldest One.
“Butch, my boy… poop and pee happen”, she confided in him, “Even the peoples with the ropes on a stick and the peoples that bring us our hard, dry brown food pee and poop. Its part of the Chin and people universe. I am sorry, too. I’m sorry you have to be in this place.”
Butch giggled to himself over the idea of peoples peeing and pooping. The relief of his laughter was contagious as both the Oldest One and the youngest pup both enjoyed the relief that the joke offered them.
“I bet the peoples with the rope on a stick… I bet he pooped in his pants when I growled at him and tried to bite his hand as he put his rope around my neck!!!” Butch imagined in his brain, still holding onto a tiny bit of Chin pride and dignity. His Aunt was proud of him for not giving up his Chin attitude and indifference. It was those very things that would carry him through this nightmare and on throughout his life.
“When this is over and you are an old and mighty warrior Chin… you will look back on this time in your life and laugh”, Sophie Chin told her loving nephew.
“Why would I laugh, Auntie” Butch asked her, not quite understanding how this horrible place and time could ever be funny.
“Because, my love, you will have beaten the worst of times that these peoples could offer. You will have risen above it, become stronger for it and you will laugh at those who thought they could beat you by treating you in this disrespectful manner,” Auntie Sophie firmly cried out with the indifference. “For YOU are a Japanese Chin, and WE are the chosen breed!”
“And YOU will laugh with me, Oldest One,” Butch added, feeling the pride and stubbornness in his beloved Aunt.
Sophie May quickly nodded and then looked away. She had long assumed that only one of them would make it out of this place to return to the Old Brown House… and it would likely not be the oldest Chin to ever live in the Yard that Goes on Forever. At this moment in time, she was consumed by one singular thought… she had to get Butch Chin out of this place and back to the Old Brown House, no matter what the sacrifice.
They huddled together in silence for quite awhile… at least as silent as it can be in a small place with countless other dogs howling, growling, crying and whimpering in the far and near distance around them. It was never quiet in this place, never. At night the peoples with the rop on a stick would find more unfortunate dogs that were looking for their forever home and capture them, then bring them here. Their entry into the room of cages would start everyone howling and reacting to “fresh meat” to pick on or frighten. The truth was… everyone here was afraid. They had all watched as the peoples in charge would select dogs to be taken beyond the gray door. No doggie knew what happened beyond that door but they all understood that once you went past the door, you never returned.
“Auntie,” started Butch, eyes popping opened after only a few moments of rest, “do you wonder what happens beyond the gray door?”
Sophie thought for a moment before she answered. She saw no reason to frighten or worry the young Chin with the truth of what she really believed happened beyond that door. This would be too much for him today… now… in this place… at this time. So she did what any loving parent would do, she lied.
“Perhaps that is where you go when your peoples find you… or new peoples chose you to go to your forever home, Butch,” the good Aunt fibbed. “I’m quite sure of it… it is a happy time because those lucky few get to leave here and never return.”
“Will WE get to go beyond the gray door, Auntie Sophie?” the innocent young Chin asked.
“You will be back at the Old Brown House before you know it Butch,” Sophie answered without really answering the question asked. “And best of all, your sister will be waiting for you and she will be very happy to be with you again.”
Butch smiled as he started to drift off to stare at the back of his eyelids, “She will be so jealous that we were in the Real World… won’t she Auntie…” but before Sophie could answer, Butch was mostly in his brain and resting.
The Oldest One lay very still, so as not to upset her resting Chindren and allow him to dream of better places and better times both in the past and directly ahead. She was glad he was finally resting a bit, however, she was not so lucky. Her mind raced as she desperately tried to figure out how she would get Butch out of this place, out of this predicament and back home to the Old Brown House. She knew that THIS was not the adventure Butch was expecting out here in the Real World. THIS was not at all like the mostly true tales she had shown them on that dark and rainy night. THIS was a nightmare they were living, a nightmare with no end in sight.
Suddenly the quiet was broken by the sound of howling and barking. The peoples in charge had entered their prison room and were shinning their light sticks in every cage. Sophie knew that this meant they were looking for the next round of unfortunate souls to take behind the gray door. She only hoped this trial would pass them by on this night.
The light stick bounced in time with the sound of footsteps on the hard and cold floor. Every so many steps the light would stop and shine into a cage, which created a commotion of barks and howls from the prisoner trapped inside. You could hear muffled peoples voices in the distance as they passed instance judgment and sentence on the inmate in the cage. “This one’s a go”, “Let’s wait on this guy”, “According to the list, his time is up”, “I have a note that this one is a troublemaker”, “nobody is coming for this one” were just some of the comments made as they picked the group to make the last walk on this night. Sophie watched as the light moved closer and closer to their cage. She held her breath, hoping that the light would pass them by… but knowing deep inside that eventually it would come for them. Her worst fears became reality as the light stopped next to their cage and then turned on the pair of Chins.
“How about we take this old one?” Asked one invisible voice behind the light.
“Yep… nobody is ever going to take her. She’s old and frail,” agreed another hidden voice.
“NOBODY TAKES MY AUNTIE,” shouted a now wide awake Butch Chin, as he rushed towards the front of the cage. “GET OUT OF HERE, LIGHT!!!”
Butch woo’ed and barked, attempting to chase the light away from the cage and, in turn, protect his Aunt from the doggy snatchers. The voices behind the light laughed and called out to him.
“WOW… look at that little monster,” they teased.
“Yep… my ankles would be his dinner if it wasn’t for the steel bars of his cage,” laughed another.
“Maybe we should take him… he is vicious,” chuckled the first voice behind the light.
Sophie heard and understood their peoples words. She attempted to calm her nephew and bring him into line. If anyone was going behind the gray door on this night… it would NOT be Butch Chin.
“Butch… shhhhh… come here and stand next to me, my love,” she said in a soft and gentle tone. “These peoples will do you no harm and I will reason with them to leave us be tonight.”
“But Auntie, I must protect you,” Butch pleaded with the Oldest One.
“No, my child… I must protect YOU, for you are far more important than these old bones,” Sophie continued, still soft and sweet in her tone. “You come here and sit with me. We must show these peoples that they have nothing to fear from us.”
Butch reluctantly obeyed his Aunt and returned to her side, grumbling all the way about his Warrior Chin status and that he could have defeated the light and made them all safe.
“Well will you look at that,” said one of the voices behind the light. “It appears the old one talked some sense into the little man.”
“Yep,” spoke another voice hidden by the light. “Since she can calm him down, I say we leave her till later. She’s not going anywhere and if she keeps him in line, maybe he will find someone to take him home.”
And with that, the light stick moved on to another cage and another life or death choice for an inmate of the prison of the dogs. The gray door was put off for at least one more night and one more cycle of life was granted to these two cellmates.
Sophie smiled at Butch, proud of him for wanting to protect her but ever afraid they would not be so lucky on the next pass of the light stick. She put her tail around his neck and rubbed her old face against his head.
“I love you, Butch” Auntie Sophie said to her young companion. “Never has anyone offered to put their life before mine. You are my… hero.”
There was an instant brightness in the very eyes of Butch Chin. He liked the sound of the word “Hero”. He was, indeed, a grown up warrior Chin. He smiled to himself and rubbed his face back on his Aunties head.
“And… I likes you fine, Auntie Sophie… I likes you fine,” Butch nodded his head and turned away from her slightly. For you see, Butch had just learned a hard lesson that those you love can easily be taken from you in the time that passes with a single breath. Never again would Butch Chin utter the words “I love you” for he feared that if those words were ever spoken, his beloved souls would disappear from his life… much as his Chincestor had learned the same lesson in another time before the Old Brown House.
“Auntie… what happens next,” Butch asked, not really sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Sophie thought for a moment as the weak glow of the Sun in the distance began to light up the ever dark room they were trapped in. How could she explain uncertainty to a brain so young and a soul so new? After all… this was a question where she, the Oldest Chin ever to live, didn’t know the answer.
“We… live on,” she answered. “You and I, we get along and live another day. We will find a ray of hope here in this place. Perhaps we will make a friend and change a life, Butch.” Sophie found her old spirit renewed a bit by the selfless act of her nephew. She needed to be positive for him, give him hope and help him to have desire to live. “Indeed, Butch Chin… today will be the day that the peoples of the Old Brown House come to find us here at this place. They will take us back there and we will NEVER roam outside of the Tall Wooden Fence again!” She smiled down at her Chindren and he smiled back as his old Auntie. “One way or the other, Butch… today is the day you will see the REAL light of our friend the Sun. You will be outside of this cage, out of this room, beyond that dirty gray door and back out into the Real World. Today is a new day, my child… today is the day of our release back into the freedom of life!”
“Why do you know these things, Auntie?” asked Butch, feeling more positive than he had since he walked out of the break in the Tall Wooden Fence all those Chin days ago.
“Well… I know them because… well…” Sophie stumbled and searched for a reason before the obvious answer fell out of her brain through her mouth and into his ears, “… I know because I am still the leader of the pack of the Round Man, I am the oldest Chin to ever live and I am much wiser than any peoples hiding behind a light stick could EVER be!” A knowing little smirk appeared on her face as she nodded her head in agreement with her last words.
“Maybe I could eat a bit of the dry and no taste snackies, Auntie,” Butch said, feeling much better about their current lot in life. “I want YOU to eat some, as well. You have to stay strong so we can walk out of here, together.”
Butch choked down a bit of the stale kibble and drank some water out of a plain steel bowl. The pair sat, side by side, on the floor of the dirty cage and watched the new day slowly creep into the dark and dank room. It was the same scene as the previous morning, only this time there was a visitor with them in the cage that was bigger than them both, it was bigger than Someday and as bright as the Sun. That visitors name was “Hope” and he had come to be with them and stay awhile.
“Now that we have Hope, Butch, we can overcome anything,” the Oldest One said with confidence. “You just watch… today will bring something unexpected and something wonderful.”
The funny thing is… Sophie Chin had no idea just how true those words would turn out to be.
Prison, regardless if it’s a prison of the brain or a prison of the body, is taxing on the soul of a small dog. Chin minutes become Chin hours, which become Chin days. The air is always heavy with sadness, the food is mealy and tasteless and the smell is so bad that it sticks to everything… including the inside of a dog’s nose. There is so little light that your eyes become sensitive to what little brightness the Sun can push through to where you are.
Cages are a cell, so dark and dank with the odor of dog accidents that your fur turns color from white to tan very quickly. In this prison, this place that calls itself a “Shelter”, there is no playtime, no happiness, no woo’s of joy or spins of excitement. Every moment of every day is filled with thoughts of your loved ones, your pack, your past and what your future might hold. Hope hovers above you, trying to extend a hand down and help to keep your spirits up… but even hope is greasy and slippery in prison. Just when you think all is lost and your future likes in this place of misery, you find a small glimmer of tomorrow hiding in the eyes of a small child that you love.
Auntie Sophie laid on the filthy cage floor so that Butch Chin could rest his head on her soft fur and not on the disgust that surrounded them on all sides. She lightly licked and groomed his ears and head as he tried to sleep. It was good that they were together in this place… she imagined how horrible it would be if they were alone or separated again. Butch looked up at her and forced a weak… and very fake… smile.
“I am sorry Auntie”, he said in a very small voice.
Sophie cocked her head ever so slightly at an angle and looked puzzled, “And why would YOU be sorry, my beautiful boy” she asked, smiling back at him. She didn’t want Butch to realize that she was just as afraid and uncertain as he was. She had to be his strength in this place, for she was his source of light and hope.
“I peed and pooped on our cage floor, Auntie… and I am sorry”, he said with an ashamed and sad tone. “I know you have to smell it and I know you are laying over it. I don’t understand why the peoples here do not come and let us go out into their yard that goes on forever so we can run and play and poop like a proper Chin.”
Auntie Sophie felt for her nephew. He was much too small to be in this very awful place. Someday has certainly fixed them this time with his lies and trickery. How low he was, using a mere child as a pawn to get his way and get back at the Oldest One.
“Butch, my boy… poop and pee happen”, she confided in him, “Even the peoples with the ropes on a stick and the peoples that bring us our hard, dry brown food pee and poop. Its part of the Chin and people universe. I am sorry, too. I’m sorry you have to be in this place.”
Butch giggled to himself over the idea of peoples peeing and pooping. The relief of his laughter was contagious as both the Oldest One and the youngest pup both enjoyed the relief that the joke offered them.
“I bet the peoples with the rope on a stick… I bet he pooped in his pants when I growled at him and tried to bite his hand as he put his rope around my neck!!!” Butch imagined in his brain, still holding onto a tiny bit of Chin pride and dignity. His Aunt was proud of him for not giving up his Chin attitude and indifference. It was those very things that would carry him through this nightmare and on throughout his life.
“When this is over and you are an old and mighty warrior Chin… you will look back on this time in your life and laugh”, Sophie Chin told her loving nephew.
“Why would I laugh, Auntie” Butch asked her, not quite understanding how this horrible place and time could ever be funny.
“Because, my love, you will have beaten the worst of times that these peoples could offer. You will have risen above it, become stronger for it and you will laugh at those who thought they could beat you by treating you in this disrespectful manner,” Auntie Sophie firmly cried out with the indifference. “For YOU are a Japanese Chin, and WE are the chosen breed!”
“And YOU will laugh with me, Oldest One,” Butch added, feeling the pride and stubbornness in his beloved Aunt.
Sophie May quickly nodded and then looked away. She had long assumed that only one of them would make it out of this place to return to the Old Brown House… and it would likely not be the oldest Chin to ever live in the Yard that Goes on Forever. At this moment in time, she was consumed by one singular thought… she had to get Butch Chin out of this place and back to the Old Brown House, no matter what the sacrifice.
They huddled together in silence for quite awhile… at least as silent as it can be in a small place with countless other dogs howling, growling, crying and whimpering in the far and near distance around them. It was never quiet in this place, never. At night the peoples with the rop on a stick would find more unfortunate dogs that were looking for their forever home and capture them, then bring them here. Their entry into the room of cages would start everyone howling and reacting to “fresh meat” to pick on or frighten. The truth was… everyone here was afraid. They had all watched as the peoples in charge would select dogs to be taken beyond the gray door. No doggie knew what happened beyond that door but they all understood that once you went past the door, you never returned.
“Auntie,” started Butch, eyes popping opened after only a few moments of rest, “do you wonder what happens beyond the gray door?”
Sophie thought for a moment before she answered. She saw no reason to frighten or worry the young Chin with the truth of what she really believed happened beyond that door. This would be too much for him today… now… in this place… at this time. So she did what any loving parent would do, she lied.
“Perhaps that is where you go when your peoples find you… or new peoples chose you to go to your forever home, Butch,” the good Aunt fibbed. “I’m quite sure of it… it is a happy time because those lucky few get to leave here and never return.”
“Will WE get to go beyond the gray door, Auntie Sophie?” the innocent young Chin asked.
“You will be back at the Old Brown House before you know it Butch,” Sophie answered without really answering the question asked. “And best of all, your sister will be waiting for you and she will be very happy to be with you again.”
Butch smiled as he started to drift off to stare at the back of his eyelids, “She will be so jealous that we were in the Real World… won’t she Auntie…” but before Sophie could answer, Butch was mostly in his brain and resting.
The Oldest One lay very still, so as not to upset her resting Chindren and allow him to dream of better places and better times both in the past and directly ahead. She was glad he was finally resting a bit, however, she was not so lucky. Her mind raced as she desperately tried to figure out how she would get Butch out of this place, out of this predicament and back home to the Old Brown House. She knew that THIS was not the adventure Butch was expecting out here in the Real World. THIS was not at all like the mostly true tales she had shown them on that dark and rainy night. THIS was a nightmare they were living, a nightmare with no end in sight.
Suddenly the quiet was broken by the sound of howling and barking. The peoples in charge had entered their prison room and were shinning their light sticks in every cage. Sophie knew that this meant they were looking for the next round of unfortunate souls to take behind the gray door. She only hoped this trial would pass them by on this night.
The light stick bounced in time with the sound of footsteps on the hard and cold floor. Every so many steps the light would stop and shine into a cage, which created a commotion of barks and howls from the prisoner trapped inside. You could hear muffled peoples voices in the distance as they passed instance judgment and sentence on the inmate in the cage. “This one’s a go”, “Let’s wait on this guy”, “According to the list, his time is up”, “I have a note that this one is a troublemaker”, “nobody is coming for this one” were just some of the comments made as they picked the group to make the last walk on this night. Sophie watched as the light moved closer and closer to their cage. She held her breath, hoping that the light would pass them by… but knowing deep inside that eventually it would come for them. Her worst fears became reality as the light stopped next to their cage and then turned on the pair of Chins.
“How about we take this old one?” Asked one invisible voice behind the light.
“Yep… nobody is ever going to take her. She’s old and frail,” agreed another hidden voice.
“NOBODY TAKES MY AUNTIE,” shouted a now wide awake Butch Chin, as he rushed towards the front of the cage. “GET OUT OF HERE, LIGHT!!!”
Butch woo’ed and barked, attempting to chase the light away from the cage and, in turn, protect his Aunt from the doggy snatchers. The voices behind the light laughed and called out to him.
“WOW… look at that little monster,” they teased.
“Yep… my ankles would be his dinner if it wasn’t for the steel bars of his cage,” laughed another.
“Maybe we should take him… he is vicious,” chuckled the first voice behind the light.
Sophie heard and understood their peoples words. She attempted to calm her nephew and bring him into line. If anyone was going behind the gray door on this night… it would NOT be Butch Chin.
“Butch… shhhhh… come here and stand next to me, my love,” she said in a soft and gentle tone. “These peoples will do you no harm and I will reason with them to leave us be tonight.”
“But Auntie, I must protect you,” Butch pleaded with the Oldest One.
“No, my child… I must protect YOU, for you are far more important than these old bones,” Sophie continued, still soft and sweet in her tone. “You come here and sit with me. We must show these peoples that they have nothing to fear from us.”
Butch reluctantly obeyed his Aunt and returned to her side, grumbling all the way about his Warrior Chin status and that he could have defeated the light and made them all safe.
“Well will you look at that,” said one of the voices behind the light. “It appears the old one talked some sense into the little man.”
“Yep,” spoke another voice hidden by the light. “Since she can calm him down, I say we leave her till later. She’s not going anywhere and if she keeps him in line, maybe he will find someone to take him home.”
And with that, the light stick moved on to another cage and another life or death choice for an inmate of the prison of the dogs. The gray door was put off for at least one more night and one more cycle of life was granted to these two cellmates.
Sophie smiled at Butch, proud of him for wanting to protect her but ever afraid they would not be so lucky on the next pass of the light stick. She put her tail around his neck and rubbed her old face against his head.
“I love you, Butch” Auntie Sophie said to her young companion. “Never has anyone offered to put their life before mine. You are my… hero.”
There was an instant brightness in the very eyes of Butch Chin. He liked the sound of the word “Hero”. He was, indeed, a grown up warrior Chin. He smiled to himself and rubbed his face back on his Aunties head.
“And… I likes you fine, Auntie Sophie… I likes you fine,” Butch nodded his head and turned away from her slightly. For you see, Butch had just learned a hard lesson that those you love can easily be taken from you in the time that passes with a single breath. Never again would Butch Chin utter the words “I love you” for he feared that if those words were ever spoken, his beloved souls would disappear from his life… much as his Chincestor had learned the same lesson in another time before the Old Brown House.
“Auntie… what happens next,” Butch asked, not really sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Sophie thought for a moment as the weak glow of the Sun in the distance began to light up the ever dark room they were trapped in. How could she explain uncertainty to a brain so young and a soul so new? After all… this was a question where she, the Oldest Chin ever to live, didn’t know the answer.
“We… live on,” she answered. “You and I, we get along and live another day. We will find a ray of hope here in this place. Perhaps we will make a friend and change a life, Butch.” Sophie found her old spirit renewed a bit by the selfless act of her nephew. She needed to be positive for him, give him hope and help him to have desire to live. “Indeed, Butch Chin… today will be the day that the peoples of the Old Brown House come to find us here at this place. They will take us back there and we will NEVER roam outside of the Tall Wooden Fence again!” She smiled down at her Chindren and he smiled back as his old Auntie. “One way or the other, Butch… today is the day you will see the REAL light of our friend the Sun. You will be outside of this cage, out of this room, beyond that dirty gray door and back out into the Real World. Today is a new day, my child… today is the day of our release back into the freedom of life!”
“Why do you know these things, Auntie?” asked Butch, feeling more positive than he had since he walked out of the break in the Tall Wooden Fence all those Chin days ago.
“Well… I know them because… well…” Sophie stumbled and searched for a reason before the obvious answer fell out of her brain through her mouth and into his ears, “… I know because I am still the leader of the pack of the Round Man, I am the oldest Chin to ever live and I am much wiser than any peoples hiding behind a light stick could EVER be!” A knowing little smirk appeared on her face as she nodded her head in agreement with her last words.
“Maybe I could eat a bit of the dry and no taste snackies, Auntie,” Butch said, feeling much better about their current lot in life. “I want YOU to eat some, as well. You have to stay strong so we can walk out of here, together.”
Butch choked down a bit of the stale kibble and drank some water out of a plain steel bowl. The pair sat, side by side, on the floor of the dirty cage and watched the new day slowly creep into the dark and dank room. It was the same scene as the previous morning, only this time there was a visitor with them in the cage that was bigger than them both, it was bigger than Someday and as bright as the Sun. That visitors name was “Hope” and he had come to be with them and stay awhile.
“Now that we have Hope, Butch, we can overcome anything,” the Oldest One said with confidence. “You just watch… today will bring something unexpected and something wonderful.”
The funny thing is… Sophie Chin had no idea just how true those words would turn out to be.