A large figure in blue dangles a light over my eyes as a second one cuts the t-shirt from my body, revealing my skin to the brisk air of the four enclosed walls around me. The light is white and cold; I wonder if L.E.D. poisoning could be a thing.

My skin tightens as the figure cutting off my shirt pours something onto my stomach, already covered with blood; the two colors mixing must look like a medieval spin art. Clay-ola.

The sharp pain that follows sends me further away, then brings me closer to where I am. A kind of purgatory. Swimming between pain and consciousness as the liquids mix together on my skin.

There is a wound on my arm that the first figure begins to press up against, sending a fire into my blood and making me scream out, my echo being my only reply. Then another.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, can you hear me?"

I attempt to respond as they adjust the tubing in my wrist.

"Ma'am?" The figure says again, leaning down closer to me. I can feel their breath hitting my ear like a piercing.

"Yes," I whisper. Or at least I think I do. I am slipping in and out of wherever I am; an impromptu slip and slide laid out over the lawn, one sharp turn away from ending it all. I can feel that we are moving and I begin to notice the machines around me.

"Ma'am, stay with me. I need you to tell me what happened."

"What happened?" I mutter. "What happened?"

I find myself drifting even more, an ethereal crowd surf pulling me out of what I have decided must be a vehicle. I look up and around through what must be tear shot eyes and confirm my suspicions. I'm in an ambulance.

And then, I'm not. I'm walking up to a house with bricks for legs. The air smells crisp like hospital sheets were laid out to dry in the summer sun, bleaching the color out while the rest of us burn.

I approach the door and reach my hand out to knock, grazing the brazen surface with each sound. The door is old and rich, giving off a Daddy Warbuck's kind of vibe. I laugh at the thought of myself as Annie and I knock again, letting the sound reverberate off the walls.

On either side of the steps to the door are small pink and white flowers, peonies maybe, a breast cancer awareness ad growing naturally, fighting off the weeds around it. Only some can't fight it off. My mother loved peonies.

I feel out of place here. The flowers. The house. I am orphan Annie in a Pierce the Veil t-shirt delivering pizza in the suburbs.

The air feels light around me. Cars quietly drift past on the road, sending small gusts of wind towards me, mixing my perfume, the pizza in my hands, and the smell of the air into a conglomeration that doesn't smell unlike a school cafeteria. The smell pulls me back for a moment.

"Ma'am, stay with me. We're almost there!"

I can feel that the ambulance is going fast, but not faster than I am pulled away again.

"There… there was a dog," I whisper.

And, then there is a Christmas present. I am sitting in my living room, daddy alone on the couch, the cushions sunken like eyelids full to the brim with salted water. But only visible where he isn't.

"Open it, Mija. It's from me and your mother," my father gasps.

"Okay daddy," my voice comes out shrilly.

I place my now small hands over the package, large, with small holes in the top like the ends of drinking straws.

Knock, knock, knock.

The door finally opens after what has definitely been too long; I have other orders to deliver and money to send home.

As the door opens, I am met with pine and cologne. The man in the door is clean kept, a few inches taller than me. That's saying something in terms of height. He's wearing a white button down with little sailboats on it, a gentlemen's allure to the sea. It is short sleeve, revealing a tattoo collection that would make any hipster proud.

His hair is white and combed back, face covered in memories and age lines.

"Finally," he has the nerve to say.

I notice a dog at his feet, white fur and cut ears, like an elf in a Petco ad. It wears a black collar that stands out against the otherwise white coat.

"Yes, sir. Sorry about that," I say in my most I don't care about your petty bullshit, but of course I want your tip voice. One becomes accustomed to such talk after years in customer service jobs.

I feel a breeze at my back pushing me into the pine, and the cologne, and the box wrapped in blue and gold with holes in the top, and little hands glossing over it like snow melting from a rooftop. The hands find a place to rip in the corner of the box and start tearing up: slippery, watery and full of—my hands pull the last piece of wrapping paper from the box and my little eyes look up to my father and he looks as though he ripped the paper off with me.

"Open it, Mija. Your mother picked it out for you."

"Okay, daddy. Sorry, my hands are so little!" I say, holding up my, indeed, little hands and giggling at the tears.

"Sorry? Sorry doesn't mean anything. I ordered this pizza half an hour ago. It better still be hot."

"Ma'am, ma'am, come back! You said there was a dog?"

I reach to the flap on the box and open it up, a gateway to a past I can't visit again. As I lift the box open, something pushes its way out.

I scream. "Daddy, you and mommy got me a-"

"Yes sir, 30 minutes, that's our motto: 30 minutes or less."

"Fine, fine, whatever. Just give me the pizza."

"That'll be $10.50," I say while looking back at the dog, its ears moving up and down as its eyes stare into me.

As the man digs through his pockets for change, I ask him the dog's name.

"Terrance, but we call him Terry."

"Ma'am!"

"Is it okay if I pet him?"

I am in a hospital bed with a new dangling light over me. I can feel something over my mouth and the breeze of several people drifting beside me hits my paper gown that I am now wearing. The room smells like medicine and blood, a child's bloodstream mere moments from birth.

"Ma'am," says a new voice pushing away the bright light for a second, revealing their figure, "Ma'am, we have you now; we are going to do everything in our power to save you, okay?"

I nod, or at least I think I do before I am sent back once more.

There was a dog.

I look up at Daddy as a white ball of fur with pointy ears like my school erasers licks my face and I laugh. "Daddy, daddy! You got me a dog! Mommy, mommy! I love it, mommy! Wait, daddy, why are your eyes leaking?"

"Mommy loves you too, Mija," Daddy says while wiping his eyes with his sweater. "Daddy's okay, mi amor. Just remember that mommy loves you."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," the man says, still trying to find the change that he owes me.

I reach down to the dog, my hand inches away from its nose when I hear something behind me. I turn around for a moment to see a spec of brown on an otherwise well-kept lawn; a squirrel. I barely have time to think before I am knocked over by hurricane Terry. I also don't think about chasing after it. But I do anyway.

The squirrel and the dog and I run across the lawn, a perfect caricature of the circle of life until I jump out in front of the dog as two bright lights return.

"Ma'am?"

I am in a waiting room, legs crossed as I wait for my name to be called.

"Ma'am?" The doctor says again, "Are you ready to say goodbye?"

I follow the doctor's white coat trailing at her heels, each step kicking up the tails, making her look like a caped hero. In a way, I suppose she is.

On a black table in the center of the room lies a much larger, much older white pile of fur with ears that once pointed upwards like flowers looking for the sun.

"I'll give the two of you a minute to say goodbye."

I look down at my best friend. My dog. My gift from my mother.

I feel the tears forming in my eyes this time rather than from my little hands.

"Goodbye, mi amor. Goodbye, mom."

I stroke his coat one last time and place a peony his muzzle.

"Goodbye." And then he is gone.

A hand on my shoulder. "Ma'am?"

I am in a new hospital bed. Gauzed up like a coat of snow in the spring.

"Ma'am, you have visitors," the doctor smiles.

An older man in a short sleeve shirt with tattoos walks in with a dog in tow. A white dog, with clipped ears like an elf in a Petco ad, like mini pencil erasers, like flowers growing on the side of a stairway.

"Thank you, thank you for saving my dog."