3. A Dog

Emma was her name, she was 4 years older than me. A mother of a child had a small body with waist length wavy black hair which was always tied low.She was very agile and energetic, and skillful, though sometimes a bit fussy. We had been friends for a pretty long time, when I was still having my therapy.

Her mother was hospitalized in the same hospital I also had my treatment. It was when I started being friends because we often met.

I and Emma worked at the same place. When she knew I preferred to live alone and far away from my parents, she offered to work in a florist belonged to her mother while continuing my study which had been delayed for pretty long.

Emma taught me how to make medias for planting, to turn waste into organic compost to breed and to care for various types of plants. Moreover, she was more like a sister to me, teaching me how to cook when I lived independently for the first time. She even taught me how to manage my money, and of course be a shoulder to cry on all the time.

…

That morning, once I arrived home, I dropped by at the shop. Emma looked at me and irritated, "You still have 2 days more. And you are here already. How come?," She said as she walked toward me.

"I am accustomed to being here," I could not lie to her.

"Still unable to adapt well?," She looked at me curiously.

I shrugged. I did not even understand what I had experienced. My mother wanted me to live in that house because my brother decided to leave and be with his wife. Meanwhile my grandmother got sick pretty often so my mother had to take care of her.

"Well, I have no problem living there actually. The nightmares visiting my dreams, I can handle it," I looked at Emma, trying to convince her that I could control my fear. "I am just disturbed. Anytime I am there, I feel I can recall that incident. Everything in my house, my room, my living room ignited those memories easily" I explained. "I could even remember all those horrible incidents once I stepped on my feet in front of the gate of my house. Honestly, it was very disturbing,".

Emma seated me on a small chair in front of the cashier. We were face to face. She stared at me deeply looking worried. Patting my shoulder and then smiling. "Everyone has different healing process and time. Do not push too hard. Let alone a wound like yours, even a physical wound takes different time to heal from one person to another," She tried to cheer me up.

"I just feel it is too long, Em, I am really bored now" I complained. "I just thought, if… if it had never happened, Zie would have been alive. And, I would not be afraid to go to my house. I would not have spent so much time for the therapy, and… I don't know what to say," Regrets were overpowering my head. If , if and if that had not happened, if Zie was not the victim of a gunshot, I would not have such serious trauma. If someone had been very careful, he would not have killed the innocent.

"Do you regret that accident?" Emma stood up from her chair, walking to the section full of calladium. "Do you regret that incident?" she repeated her question. Then she picked up one of pots of crossbreeding florida red ruffles. "What do you exactly want from that incident? To prevent it from happening? Can you do that?" she put the pot in front of me. "Tha, tragedy is beyond our control. We are not kids anymore expecting a time machine available one day so that we can go back to the past and fix what was bad in our life. Life simply has to go on with or without the presence of your friend. You just have to face it."

I was still a good listener when Emma continued. " All the bad luck is process that bring you to today's life. Without the presence of it, there would not be Tha of today. We would never meet. Had you no traumatic incident and months of healing therapy in the hospital, so today you would not be in this shop, and listen to my advice. The same thing for caladium" she pointed at caladium seed in front of me. "To breed it, you have to separate the bud from the main root. From them, it is a painful process. But that way, they can grow well because they don't have to fight each other for food. Plants also have adaptive process, after being moved to new media. Sometimes they withered or die. Please have a look at the survival from this caladium." I glanced at her for a second, then focused on the little plant in front of me. "This will grow up into a beautiful one through a painful process. In short, process to makes someone better is not easy and good. Sometimes, it hurts." She ended it.

I focused on that little plant. It was little and alone like me. But it could grow well and survived so that people would love to buy it. Emma was right. Without that incident, there would not be me of today, I would not meet her, and there was no way I would be here, either. I could not do anything to what had happened but to take it.

"Tha, do you keep a dog now?," asked Emma, scattering my recollections. "I saw a white dog in front of your house this morning. It seemed well cared and tame. It could not be wild one, though," She pushed a chunk of cake to her mouth.

"No!," I exclaimed, either shocked or confused. "You know I am afraid of dogs. I like them though, but I cannot be close with them " I told her. And I saw her expression was restless. "It may be my neighbor's dog" I just snapped any possibilities so as not to make it long for today.

…

Just 30 minutes past, an email came in my cell phone. My counselor asked to come to campus for a counseling and revision of the program I made. Hurriedly I took Emma's bike and left to campus.

"Em, Izrail called," I shouted at Emma.

"Okay, beb" Emma replied while working on the planting medias.

I paddled the bike as fast as I could to reach the campus which was only 1 km away from the shop. . At the counselor's room, Mr. Heong was waiting for me at his table. He advised me for the improvement of my program and made necessary revisions. Then, I sent to him today's afternoon without fail.

I went to computer's lab on the first floor to do my tasks. The lab was very quiet that morning, only a lab assistant and 2 students,

I walked to the table by he window. It was my favorite place. Once I sat down, I turned on the computer. When my hand searched a pencil case in my bag, I saw something odd that confused me, footprints of an animal. It looked like the footprints of a cat or a puppy due to the small size. It was blood red. I guessed it was real blood.

I ran my eyes around and through the windows. All were still locked. I got confused.. it was impossible any animals would go in to the laboratory through the windows. Even it was through the door, there had to be someone took it in. the door Lab was slightly hard opened to keep the room cool.

I stood up from my chair and walked around the room. If that animal was still inside, I wanted to help it out of the lab seeing the blood splotches still looked fresh. .

When I ran my eyes around the room and walked around it, a student seemed to get disturbed with what I had done. He looked at me with his strange stares. I decided to stop my search and got back to my seat to finish my job and ignored the odds.