Ripples - Chapter 2: The Rescue

One good turn ...

 

       Though Stephen Wilton was only twenty-nine, he looked like a man of fifty that day. Life had been callous, and he'd actually lied. He hadn't been looking for food. He was at the end of his rope and at the very moment that Stephen encountered Kara he was searching for a quiet place to end his life. His plan was to open the veins on his wrists and let himself drift into eternal rest. But the kindness that she showed him gave him back his desire to live.

       Stephen finished his breakfast, took a hot shower and climbed back under the covers of the queen-sized bed. The comfort and warmth were intoxicating. It had been so long since he’d been in a warm bed that he’d forgotten how incredible it felt. He began to think that perhaps he could find some sort of work and save enough money to begin renting a room and sleeping in a bed every night. However time passes quickly in sleep and all too soon it was time to step back into a cold, uncaring world. But Stephen did so with the tiniest spark of hope. He retrieved the grocery cart in which he kept his belongings from the boiler room where Kara had stashed it for him. He left a note of thanks for Kara and borrowed several large plastic trash bags from an unattended housekeeping cart on his way out.

       He knew the manager of a fast food restaurant on the other side of town that got a large food shipment every Monday. It was her job to empty the cases of food and arrange them in the freezer. This was work that she despised. Several times in the past she’d paid him fifteen dollars to do this for her. He would collect some cans on his way over and turn them in for the deposit. With any luck, he would have twenty-five dollars by nightfall.

       As he worked his way towards the restaurant, he filled the first trash bag and laid it into the grocery cart. He opened another bag and pushed his cart a bit further along the road that served as a border between the gray gloom of the industrial park and the vivid greens, yellows and reds of the city park. That was where he saw it. A small mutt of a puppy yipped and pulled violently with her hind legs as she tried mightily to free her head from between the vertical bars of a curbside drainage grate. The curb was filled with mud and debris and to make matters worse the gloomy drizzle fed enough water to the gutter to create a small stream of runoff that made the little dog’s situation that much more desperate.

       Stephen wheeled his cart over to the grate and knelt down to assess the situation. After about fifteen seconds, he had a plan. He grabbed a nearby cinder block, and set it down upstream of the grate so that the runoff was diverted around the ensnared pup. He rummaged quickly through his jacket pockets and found the small bar of soap that he’d taken from his room. After a few moments of soap and runoff water, the little dog’s head was slippery enough to slip free from the bars of the grate. Stephen didn’t want to leave the puppy there for fear that she’d get herself right back into trouble. He slid the puppy down past the bag of bottles and cans onto the shoddy blanket at the bottom of the cart and continued his trek towards the restaurant.
 

Reviews

[Tara]

Pay it forward, eh? Next chapter, does the puppy save a mouse or something? Just kidding ....I am enjoying this..well written and heart warming...just how I like my mornings.

[nostal]

Amazing. You are awesome.

[Emily B]

I'm excited to see where this will go . . . so many trudge on without hope that Stephen's spark is a little intoxicating today.