The red ball

I was following behind a big,, four door, brown sedan on the way to Plattsburg the other day. I was thinking to myself how old the car was, but how well it was kept up when I saw movement inside and a red ball came flying out of passenger side. I slowed down because I thought the car would pull over to retrieve the toy.

It didn’t,

So I pulled over just past some roadkill,, the corpse of a large dog,, and got out to get the ball. I figured I could retrieve the ball, then post on the Lathrop Discussion group. Maybe the owner would claim it.

The stretch of road was deserted, just me and my car, and the dead dog. My eyes slid over the vaguely German Shepherd colored corpse looking for where the ball bounced off the road and into the grass. But it wasn’t in the grass. The red ball was travelling,, somehow under its own power,, in erratic circles around the furry body.

I could swear this was a ball being played with…but by what?

The red ball rolled towards me a few times in its orbit around the corpse, but it always veered away. Finally, once,, it rolled to my toes so I bent to pick it up and I could swear I felt paws on my thighs. as something asked me to throw the ball.

Yip, I heard it yip.

I threw the ball. towards the grass. Off it went, until it was back circling the corpse in the road.

I breathed deeply and got back into the car, watching the balls’ movements in the rear view mirror.

I started up the car, shaking my head.

Even dead dogs need playtime…