Put Your Hand Into The Fire

Paws struck the earth like war drums beaten by hungry and wrathful demons. Tak-Tak-Tak- against the cracked desert floor, dust hiding the rat like sliver he had the excuse of calling a tail. He sun burned relentlessly at his bleached blind eye, impairing the small blobs of darkness and drowning his vision in white. He strained to close the defective organ, but the tight pull on his skin refused him that privilege, no, he'd just have to deal with it like he always did and try to ignore the migraine inducing light penetrating his unblinking eye. He chose to instead focus on his thirst, and the scorching pain of the desert floor as his three sensitive paws drummed against it.

Hope came in the scent of crisp cool water and the small reflection in the distance, he had been fooled before by the shimmering vision of what appeared to be soothing, cool water splayed across the desert floor only to watch it dissolve into the air and reappear several feet away from him. He'd never seen such a thing in his life! Certainly not in his old home and never before in Baltimore. But this time was different. This time he could smell it, hear the soft lapping of water against a sandy shore and see the vivid green of life around it's edges. And sure enough, he soon found himself neck deep in water and kicking through a veritable blizzard of crisp clean water. He stood up to his elbows in the soothing lagoon, lapping at the silvery moisture like he had never seen it before in his life. The ache in his paws dissipated slowly and the throbbing in his head dulled considerably. Bliss. Sheer bliss.