Rocket’s Discovery

by Amy E. Ochterski

Rocket lived up to his name by shoving me backwards as he blasted his muscular mutt’s body out the car door before tearing down the rutted dirt road in pursuit of a wiry black cat. “That Rocket,” I said to the empty air, “possessor of sharp eyes and a microscopic brain. Go get ’em, boy!” Hoisting myself off the dewy grass, I rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, and commanded myself to be a responsible dog owner — once again. Serenaded by crickets, I accompanied my lengthening shadow down the rocky path while hollering for Rocket.

Crunching down the gravel path, I reflected on the day. It had been a hot, humid June day making the drive across the twisting route to the Catskills tedious. An hour before bumping up Macalister’s Run, the car’s AC fizzled out. To the bug-splattered windshield I said, “Another day, and another thing on this junker that’s just not worth fixing.” Reluctantly, I rolled down the windows. In the rising heat, Rocket increased his panting and whining, stopping only long enough to run his slobbery tongue across my arm and the car’s interior. Sometimes he got really creative and stuck his head out the window to bark at the passing cars. “Yes, Rocket,” I said, resolutely as I followed him down the road, “You’ve been quite a nuisance today. Same as every day.”

Rocket’s yelping barks led me into a tiny, untended graveyard shrouded in the foggy mists of the rapidly cooling evening. It was a small plot, no larger than a suburban front yard. Lush, wild grapevines clung to the old iron fence that bordered the plot. Several sections of the fence had collapsed under the vine’s weight. Like sentries, the green canopy of two gnarled crabapples draped the cemetery as if to shield it from the outside world. The twittering calls of woodland birds accentuated the cemetery’s tranquility.

The tall grass wadded up in my sandals, tangling in my bare toes as it rippled in the slight breeze. Enveloped by the grass’s delicious, sweet, hay-like scent, I stopped walking. The hot orb of the sun was finally setting, and it was dim enough for me to admire the early fireflies as they darted among the daisies, clover, and Indian paintbrush.

Glancing around I observed that the cemetery seemed to have only two occupants: two stone statues, one of a man and one of a woman, stood at sharp attention atop a short, white wall. Each faced the other like eternal lovers. The way they spanned the short distance with their wide, sightless eyes made it appear that each desperately wished that the five-foot separation were even shorter, that perhaps their creator could recast them into one sculpted form. Two stones entangled in one loving embrace.

I was staring intently at their melancholy repose; and so, when Rocket nuzzled the back of my hand, I jumped. “Geez, boy, you scared me!” I admonished. Seeing his limpid brown eyes, I switched into my doggy-talk tone. “Sweetums was a bad boy,” I cooed. Rocket thumped his long, shaggy tail wildly; it swept the grass, raising a cloud of mosquitoes.

Slapping at my bare legs and arms, I snatched Rocket by his worn red collar. The sinking sun was treating the night sky to a brilliant display of oranges and rosy pinks, but the color was fading fast. Soon it would be dark, and I’d have to pick my way back up the rocky, potholed path with a blind man’s instinct.

I tugged Rocket’s collar toward the fence line. We’d only taken a few steps when Rocket twisted his burly body sideways tearing himself from my grip. He propelled himself in the direction of the wall. There, perched by one of the statues, was that devilish black cat again. It arched its back into a perfect C and gave Rocket a fierce hiss. “Rocket! Rocket! No! No! I said, NO!” I shouted in frustration. I made my way over to Rocket just as the cat took momentary flight, launching himself away from Rocket’s curious reddish-blonde muzzle.

Eyes glued to the cat’s escape arc, Rocket blundered into me, knocking me down for the second time that day. As I fell, the toe of my sandal sank into a small hole. My body fell sideways, but my right foot remained straight.

Immediately, my ankle began emitting a searing pain reminiscent of hot lava from a freshly erupting volcano — maddening in its fiery red intensity. I rolled myself into a ball, the moisture soaked vegetation drenching my clothing. Distractedly, I noticed a small, brown spider clinging to a tip of the grass that now towered over my head. “Damn it, Rocket,” I howled. I pounded the flat of my hand against the ground, trying to swap one pain for the other. I gritted my teeth and rolled on to my back. I was anxious to beat the worst of the swelling by hobbling home as fast as I could.

I was just about to sit up and try placing my foot flat against the ground when I heard a distinct scraping sound — the dry, grinding nails on a chalkboard sound of stone rubbing against stone. I held my breath. I strained my ears for Rocket, but all I heard was that the crickets had ceased their chorus. Above me, the first star peeked out of the sky’s deepening twilight. To the left of the spider, a firefly twinkled just above the waving grass.

I waited for the sound to repeat. When it didn’t, I slowly raised my upper body without using my elbows. I ignored the tight burn that my stomach muscles gave in protest. With a shaky head, I looked in the direction of the road and the fallen fence and saw... nothing but the blocky form of the fence quickly fading in the encroaching inky darkness. Thinking I had mistaken the sound, I lowered my head, my mind already preparing to sit up, stand up, and wobble home.

As soon as my head was back resting on its grassy pillow, I heard it again. It was a little louder this time, like the sound boulders might make if one tried to shove them across a concrete road. There was no mistaking it. The sound was coming from the cemetery’s chalky white stone wall. My body went into the same paralysis that it did when I was a child and I was sure there were monsters under my bed.

I swiveled my head toward the crumbling grave markers. Peering up the cow path that Rocket and I had beaten into tall grass, my eyes widened and my heart began to beat crazily — its erratic tapping not that unlike an SOS Morse code signal. The foggy mist had increased, shrouding the plot in its wet, gauzy fold. Riding above the fog, like an airplane cresting over the tops of puffy cumulous clouds, were the two stone figures. They lightly gripped each other’s hands as they swirled and bobbed, dancing a fine, slow waltz to the accompaniment of the night’s sharp silence. With each twist and turn, came a scraping sound discordant enough to make my teeth grit.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to calm myself by thinking logically: Rocket ran after the cat, I ran after Rocket, Rocket mowed me down, causing me to twist my ankle and... here I lie. With that final thought, my eyes began to burn. The incessant throbbing in my ankle confirmed that I was awake and not dreaming. C’mon now. Don’t be so quick to dismiss. Dreams are tricky, I thought to myself. I continued comforting myself by thinking, It is possible that you dreamed being awake just now. Perhaps when you open your eyes you will see that you are still in Albany, sweating in your cramped, second-floor oven of an apartment; you will find yourself sprawled unceremoniously on your bed.

With a twinge of hope, I cracked open one eye, and my gaze immediately fell on the two figures twirling in the murky mist, backlit by the fireflies and the rising full moon. That stone-on-stone grinding sound accompanying each graceful twirl. Their swooping steps reminded me of how a spider spins a web — hard work that to the unsuspecting human eye looks more like effortless artistry.

There was no mistaking their weaving dance now as a trick of the eye, a bit of fog, or a bad dream. In the shimmering brightness of the full moon, the grey-pitted exterior of each glimmered. Dizzily, I understood. There was no mistaking that in the now chilly air, in this small graveyard, these two stone figures were pirouetting on the airy surface of nothingness. Although each defied gravity, what I was seeing wasn’t an optical illusion.

An odd line from a childhood nursery rhyme danced into my thoughts like a bothersome TV commercial slogan: “Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.” The sentence repeated itself in several cyclical modes. During these rapid-fire sessions, I shuddered as if from an icy chill. The kind of startling chill that makes one blurt out, “Oh, someone must have just stepped on my grave,” and then give an uneasy laugh. Only, wide-eyed and frozen with the rushing sounds of my heartbeats pinging in my ears, laughing was the farthest thing from my mind.

Lightly penetrating just above these thoughts was the distant sound of Rocket’s sharp barks. They echoed as if he was running and running with no plans to stop. From somewhere close behind my head, came the venomous sound of the black cat’s hissing.

And through it all, the stone figures calmly danced.