The Shortest Day

Same Walk, Different Shoes

“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project that Ben Wakeman organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story written from the first-person point of view. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.

I woke from a wonderful dream in which I was running through an enormous wheat field chasing the swallows as they swooped down low enough to touch my head, slowing as if to encourage me before soaring away into the distance with what sounded very much like a throaty chuckle.

Then, as reality dawned, I could feel the rope pulling tightly into my neck.

It had started to rain and the wind was whistling in through the broken barn door where I curled like a cinnamon swirl in a futile attempt to keep myself warm.

In the farmhouse across the yard, the warm yellow flicker of early morning light shone into the gloom and the smell of sausages cooking on the stove wafted across the shine of the wet cobbles. I pushed my snout at a rotting apple core sitting on the edge of an ever-expanding puddle.

I’d imagined a life very different from this one when I’d arrived.

Long walks on the moors, splashing happily through the clear blue streams that swelled every winter and dwindled to nothing but dry rubble in the heat of the summer. Lying in front of a roaring fire until bedtime before taking my place on the bottom of the bed and, when it was very cold, under the covers.

As a pup, I was always clumsy. I’d had trouble noticing things in my way. Mr Jones the farmer just persisted with his attempts to have me retrieve a ball, a stick or a thing made of rubber that looked like a dead duck. It was as if he wanted me to fail.

“She won't be much use on a hunt if she can't even chase a tennis ball," Mr Jones had said after one particularly harrowing morning when I’d been running around frantically trying to find a frisbee and fallen into a deep section of stream in the wood from which I’d been unable to clamber out.

I scrabbled and scratched for what seemed like forever before anyone thought to get in and help me, pulling me out roughly by the collar with a few words of irritation.

They took me to a dog trainer who took one look at me sniffing my way around and said,

"This dog can't see properly. You see the way she sniffs in front of her everywhere she goes?”

After that, I hadn’t been welcomed into the house anymore, hadn’t had my head ruffled, my tummy tickled, hadn't been told I was “a good girl”, or given the porridge bowls to lick. I’d been left to roam around outside on my own and tied up in the barn to sleep at night.

I wandered onto the road one foggy morning lured by the smell of half a discarded bacon sandwich and was struck by the postman in his van. He was driving mercifully slowly on account of the fog but the impact broke a bone in my leg which had to have a metal pin put into it, a costly outcome that had not made the farmer feel any more kindly towards me.

So I found myself convalescing back at the farm alone, living in the barn without care, consideration or the help I needed to thrive. I was cut adrift to fend for myself without support from anyone.

All I needed was a bit of patience and kindness, but it was obvious that I was just a nuisance.

Most days, I dream of running away to somewhere that might appreciate and love me, somewhere I’d have the chance to make the best of myself, but I don’t know where that is. It’s hard to make an impression on a world that seems only to value its own particular definition of perfection.

I think about Rosie a lot. Rosie is my daughter. She was taken away from me when she was just a baby to live with another family on the other side of the valley, although I don’t know where exactly.

Rosie was my only pup and that was another source of frustration and disappointment aimed at me. I wish we were together, just us against the world.

I rested my head on my paw and let out a big sigh that had been building up inside.

Even though it was dawn the light seemed unenthusiastic about appearing and the sun was not even awake let alone up and about. Thick thunderous clouds drifted across the crooked line where the hills met the sky and thick heavy globs of rain fell harder, bouncing off the stones of the yard.

Martin the dormouse appeared. He clambered up over my head, down the steep hill of my shoulder and settled on the end of my nose so that I had to go cross-eyed to focus on him.

“What’s up, chum?”

“I need to get out, Martin.”

“Where would you go?”

“I want to find Rosie. Someone must know where she is. I'm sure I could reach her.”

We fell silent and watched as the rain pooled in wide circles and streaked down the side of the barn where the guttering had rusted into a hole that did nothing to direct the water but did provide a convenient shortcut for Martin back to his cosy little house in hedgerow just behind the hayloft.

“I could gnaw through your rope,” said Martin after a while.

“What?”

“Your rope. I could gnaw through it if you want to leave. It would only take me a minute.”

Faced with the reality of life on my own I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted it. Life might be painful in so many ways, but at least I knew it. There’s comfort in familiarity no matter how hard it sometimes felt.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Martin. “I’ll gnaw through it, and then you can decide whether to stay or leave.”

He clambered onto my collar and balanced there while he got to work on the wet rope.

It was surprisingly chewy and tricky to hold in his jaws but eventually, he reached the final few strands and I felt a sudden jolt as it came untethered from the post to which it had been attached. I stretched my neck in all directions and felt it creak and crack in the most alarming ways.

Martin looked at me and smiled so wide that it made his eyes close. In a world so seemingly empty of love it was hard to leave the little bit that I had.

“If you’re going. Don’t leave it too long. It’s the shortest day today and the light will fade early,” and he planted a little wet mousey kiss on my snout.

The farm cat, Lazarus, pushed his hefty frame through the cat flap in the door across the yard. It had been too small for him for some years and was a source of some amazement to all the other animals that he still managed to get out through it, and even more amazing when he managed to get back in after a day of foraging for food around the farm.

Before he could set eyes on Martin, the little mouse sped off back up the drainpipe, through the hole in the guttering, and along the corrugated roof leaving behind the diminishing sound of tiny footsteps.

There was a break in the rain and between the dark clouds just enough blue sky to make a pair of sailor’s trousers, so I took my chance and scampered off through the yard, past the grain store, through the gate and off down the muddy track towards the vineyards.

When I first came to the farm all the fields were laid to crops. Corn, barley, and wheat, but as the climate changed it wasn’t only the animals that had been affected but also the use that people found for the land.

Big financial offers had been made by wine companies keen to gobble up the fertile slopes and it was said that this part of England would soon be producing as much wine as they did in France.

Bats, starlings, dormice, and otters had all reduced in number as the summers became hotter and drier and the winters wetter and milder, but nobody much seemed to care about anything that didn’t directly benefit them.

The morning light was taking hold now but with it came the cold. The earlier rain had given way to sleet and I was pleased to move into the comparative shelter of the bluebell woods.

Stopping for a rest, I found a large opening in some ground beneath a tall oak tree. I pushed myself inside a little and waited for the sleet to ease.

After a few moments, I felt a push against my side and a big gruff badger, who smelled, for some reason, like pickled onions, pushed his nose firmly against me.

“What are you doing sticking your bottom into the entrance of my house?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know it was anyone’s house. I was just sheltering from the weather. I’m looking for my daughter who lives on the other side of the valley. Can you help me find her?”

“No, no. It’s too cold, and I’m too old and I rarely go out in the daytime anyway. It’s the shortest day today and there’s hardly any light so you’d better be on your way.”

I thanked the badger and pushed on, down the slope with makeshift steps cut into it so that hikers and ramblers could reach the valley without sliding and dirtying their trousers.

Past several holly bushes that had no berries and one laden with so many that its branches were dropping under the weight, and in amongst its thorny leaves and bright red fruits a number of beautiful Waxwings. Their crests looked like impressive bouffant hairdos, and the black markings round their eyes like a mask for a fancy dress ball, and the little yellow markings on wingtips and tail brought them into sharp relief with the dull winter morning.

I spent a few moments watching them guzzle down the berries. "Such a festive little bird," I said out loud to nobody in particular.

Even though the Robin always attracts Christmas glory and gets to feature on all the cards these little birds are just as much a part of the season, travelling ever further west from Scandinavia in search of food.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’m looking for my daughter who lives on the other side of the valley. She looks a little like me. Black coat, a white stripe down her chest. Can you help me find her?”

With a flutter of wings and a chorus of melodic chirps, the little birds continued to pull the bright red berries from their stalks and replied without stopping or turning their heads,

“No, no, we’re too hungry and we have to collect these berries before they run out. It’s the shortest day today and there’s hardly any light so you’d better be on your way.”

I murmured a quiet "Thank you anyway," and trudged on through the valley as the sleet turned to snow.

As a puppy I’d have given anything to be out running in the snow, twisting around in ever more frantic and excited circles, leaping about as the flakes dropped steadily onto my back. But now it didn’t feel so good, covering my tracks and the path ahead so that everything began to look the same and a route that was already difficult became even more unfamiliar.

My paws sank into the powdery flakes melting against my fur, leaving a stinging cold that seemed to seep into my wearying bones. The winter air was crisp with the scent of pine mixed with the earthy musk of damp leaves as the snow fell ever more heavily.

As I trudged through the woods, the silence enveloped me like a thick woollen blanket. I could hear the gentle rustle of tree branches, weighed down by snow, and the occasional distant hoot of an owl. Each breath carried the chill of the night, the air a sharp contrast to the warmth I craved.

Occasionally, the wind whispered secrets through the trees, and the snow swirled and danced before settling once again, leaving a pristine canvas across everything that came before and was left afterwards.

Despite the biting cold, there was beauty in the winter night, a tranquillity strangely fitting alongside a sense of longing that grew stronger with every step.

The snow fell harder now, and when I looked behind me there was no evidence of any animal having walked the way I had just come. It was as if I had been dropped here and left to find my way out with no help from anything but the sky.

A rabbit darted out from behind the hawthorn, cut across the snowy track and disappeared again as fast as it had arrived into a thicket of brambles. A fox followed stopping on the path and looking around to try and work out where the rabbit had gone, its amber eyes reflecting the early evening moon.

“Have you seen a rabbit come this way?” The fox asked.

“Uhh no,” I said, feeling a strong sense of kinship with the little rabbit and concluding that it could do with all the help it could get to stay alive in this weather.

“I’m looking for my daughter,” I said to the fox who was now licking at his paws having temporarily given up the chase. “She lives somewhere on the other side of the valley but I don’t know these paths or these woods very well and even less so in this weather. I don’t see very well and my legs are hurting. I could do with some help.”

“No, no,” said the fox, “I’m too busy hunting for food while I can still get around in the snow. It’s the shortest day today you know and there’s hardly any light. You’d better be on your way," and with that, he darted into the shadows a twig cracking under his paw as his bushy tail disappeared from view.

The light was beginning to draw in now and although the snow had stopped it was becoming harder and harder to find a way through.

Everywhere looked the same, the trees and the paths, the little stream that ran alongside with the banks steepening up towards a row of lime trees at the top of the slope.

It was hard to work out if I’d been this way before or whether this big and thorny cotoneaster that I’d just caught myself on was the same one I’d passed an hour ago or just one that looked and felt a lot like it.

I decided to take shelter for a few minutes and nestled against the comforting curves of the hollowed-out trunk at the bottom of a vast willow, the biting cold gnawing at my fur.

The silence of the snowy woods was soothing and I must have fallen asleep because when I woke again it was pitch dark and I couldn’t see my way in any direction.

I began to regret the decision to leave the farm and longed for the miserable comfort of my little barn. My paws were cold, I was frightened, and alone, and had no idea where I was or where I was going.

A shadow moved across the landscape in front of me as if someone were shining a torch, but it wasn’t a torch. It was the moon.

The snow had stopped, the clouds had parted and the moon was shining brightly in the sky reflecting off the fresh snow and illuminating the landscape making everything a lot brighter than it had been at any part of the day.

I could pick out the oak trees from the beech, the path that led back towards the farm, the one that picked its way up the hill towards the village, and the one that followed the line of the little stream up towards a little wooden bridge with chicken wire pulled taught across its planks to stop the humans from slipping when it got wet and the dogs from getting their legs stuck between them.

A squirrel hopped onto a branch above my head.

“Can you help me,” I said without much sense of optimism, “I’m looking for my daughter who lives on the other side of the valley. She looks like me but I’m tired and lost and I don't know what to do.”

“I think I know your daughter if she looks like you. She chases me most days,” grinned the squirrel. “Sometimes I let her think she can catch me but she never will. She lives over there behind those trees in the little cottage on the edge of the wood.”

The squirrel pointed over my shoulder with his tail, because he was holding an impressive number of nuts in his paws, to a little house on the ridge with smoke coming from its chimney and lights burning in all four of its front windows. It looked just like the picture on a Christmas card

The light from the moon helped me pick my way across the stream using a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of smooth rocks, up the hill through a thick and treacherous patch of wild rose, between two rowan bushes, past the line of pine trees and up to a little path leading to the wooden front gate.

My paws trembled with excitement and my heart was pounding in anticipation.

With each footstep crunching on the snow-dusted path, my mind raced through memories of playful puppy days with Rosie my tail swishing with fervent anticipation.

On the little red door was a wreath made from pine, nigella flowers and poppy heads and a Christmas tree laden with lights and baubles and what looked very much like gingerbread taking up almost the whole view through one of the front windows.

I stood at the door and gave a little cautious bark. Nobody came.

I barked again. Louder this time.

The door creaked open and a lady with big red cheeks appeared wiping floury hands down the front of her white apron. The wonderful smell of baking pies wafted past her and into the cold night air.

“Hello, little one. What are you doing out in the dark on such a cold evening?” She smiled so widely it was possible to imagine falling into such kindness and staying there forever.

She brought me inside to the smells of cinnamon, nutmeg and woodsmoke. It was so cosy and I couldn’t remember ever feeling as warm.

There was a little black dog with a wide white stripe down its front curled in the bed by the fire. She stirred and shifted her head to look at me.

“Rosie?” My heart skipped a beat.

My tail started wagging furiously as if I had absolutely no control over it.

We sniffed one another pushing our snouts into ears, around tails and doing all the things we dogs do when we know one another but haven't properly realised that we do.

When Rosie realised it was me we spun around each other jumping up on our hind legs and mouthing one another with excited glee.

The lady with the red cheeks and the floury apron gave us a dish each with some chicken, carrots, parsnips and peas and a big bowl of water. I chomped down the food hungrily. I don’t remember ever eating anything that tasted so good.

Afterwards, weariness fell across me like a blanket and all I could think about was sleep

Rosie made a space for me in the bed so that we could snuggle together in the comforting warmth of a familiar embrace.

In those final moments before I drifted into a deep and peaceful sleep I gazed at Rosie whose eyes were already closed.

I thought about my journey and how it was only through trusting the world and moving with the ebb and flow of the weather rather than trying to push against it that I had found my way to somewhere I finally felt I might belong.

Whatever the disappointment I had experienced from humans so far in my life Mother Nature had not let me down. She had led me here, pushing me on through the wet and cold, illuminating the final steps of my long journey.

I didn’t know what the future might hold but for now, the only moment I or any of us can be sure about, everything was more alright than it had ever been.