Imabras swam in the crystal clear
depths, chasing a flighty pod of blethen. When he could swipe a few with his
paw, he swept them into his wide jaws and crunched through their scales into
the salty bite of their flesh. Little morsels – hard to make a meal of them,
but they were fun to chase.
The blethen swam into a narrow
channel, and Imabras dove after them, flattening his chest and spreading out
his wide tail flukes to avoid the stinging anemone on the sides. The blethen
must have triggered them, though, because they flooded the channel with their
inky toxins. Suddenly, Imabras was blind, trapped between the stone walls. He
panicked and began to trash back and forth, pushing in every direction, wedging
himself tighter and tighter. He stretched his long, slender neck as far as he
could. If only he could reach the fresh open water to clear the toxins from his
head…
Darkness, but not the confined
space of the stone channel. Imabras tested, flexing one arm after another up
and down and around. Nothing around him. Why could he not see? He squeezed the
film over his eyes, then the inner eyelids, then the outer lids. Sliding them
open, he felt the biting cold salt water on his eyes. But he could not see. The
anemone toxins? Salt water? Where was he?
Which way was up? Before he could
panic again, he remembered the lessons of his youth. He was no pup, scared of
the dark and cold. Drawing a mouthful of water, he let it slide down his long
throat and drew out the oxygen to fill his lung bladders. Waiting to see which
direction he would rise, Imabras tasted the strange water and knew he was
someplace he’d never been before…
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Dogs in house
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Houdini, Brindle
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Time writing
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15 minutes
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January word
count
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3,367
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