“Go ahead and walk normally. You can just walk like a normal person!” pleads Lilith, as she tries to get her redbone Coonhound to stand up on his hind legs.
“I know you can do it, Midas… and one day I’m gonna catch ya!”
The dog tilts his head the way dogs do when they’re confused, but still he brings up his paws to gently bat at the little girl standing before him. The sun beautifully reflects off his auburn coat and the muscles ripple beneath his fur as he balances on his back feet for his favorite tiny human. Lilith’s loose blonde curls fly every which way, and the breeze takes her hair with it as it blows. She takes a hold of a paw in each of her little hands. Lilith pretends she and Midas are dancing in the summer grass, daintily moving his paws back and forth as she giggles all the while. Some time passes by before Lilith lets go of his paws and he drops them to the ground, at last; patient boy he was. He trots around Lilith’s vicinity, tail wagging and tongue hanging, making sure to soak in every minute that he would spend in the sun. Midas loved to be out in the sun.
“Lilith, lunch!”
A holler is heard coming from the house, and Lilith’s mother is standing at the open door on their deck which leads into their kitchen. Midas hears, too, because he excitedly dashes towards the deck’s stairs and practically makes it up the stairs in one large leap.
“Mumma. Why doesn’t Midas walk like we do?”
“Well, because dogs have four legs instead of two arms and two legs like you n’ I,”
“But Midas can stand on two legs, Mumma,” replies Lilith, as if she’s starting to become exasperated by her mother, huffing as she takes a seat at their kitchen table.
Her mother laughs lightly and sets down Lilith’s plate, along with her purple sippy cup that she still likes to use, pushing little Lilith’s seat in afterward.
“He’s gonna get up, n’ he’s gonna start walkin like us one day,” stated Lilith like there was nothing in the world that she was more sure of in that moment.
“Lilith…” her father begins, smiling across the table at her. Lilith is shoveling her mac and cheese into her wide-open mouth as she intently waits for her father to continue.
“Dogs only walk around like that when there’s no humans around! We aren’t supposed to know.” His serious expression and furrowed brow proves to be believable because Lilith produces a quiet gasp, then peers under the table to look at mighty Midas curled up by her dad’s feet.
“I believe it, Lils. Remind me… What’s the truth about the moon again?”
“It’s a holograph! It used to be there for reals, when you and daddy were my age, but then…” she pauses for effect, “the aliens found out it was cheese. So they stole it for themselves, n’ then replaced it with a big ol’ holograph!”