Post by oddball on Feb 27, 2007 20:01:26 GMT -5
My Story:
A Street Dog’s Point of View by: Trio
The story I am about to tell is very real. It tells of my life living on the streets of a small city. It runs differently than most stories, it doesn’t involve any romance, action, or anything of any real interest; so in a way there is no real point to me telling you about what I have experienced in my short life. But I feel it is important for me to explain why I am the way I am. This story begins seven months ago…
My three sisters, one brother, and I were only seven weeks old when this all began. To this day none of us have any idea why, but shortly after we were able to leave our mother, we were abandoned. We were thrown out of our nice cozy home, and out into the cold forbidding streets. For the first few days we stayed together, none of us wanting to split apart from each other. All of us afraid of what was around us. After a week of trying to survive in that one place, smelling our mothers scent, and the wasted time trying to find our way back to her; we decided as a group that we could no longer stay together. That place, was not suitable for all our survival.
So with a heavy heart and a bad feeling that this may be the last time we saw each other, I went on to face my fate. After an hours aimless walking, I found myself in a small alley next to a restaurant. The food was in good supply, and a downspout near a box provided shelter and water. My first thought was, why couldn’t we have stuck together and then come to this place. Food, water, shelter, we could have been set for life. I approached the box cautiously, not wanting to get into a fight with anything. I sniffed around the outside of it, and inside. No scents what so ever. I made myself at home. The first thing I did was start sniffing around for some decent food, not that a starving dog will argue with free meals.
For half a month I stayed there, surviving rather well. That is until; one of the restaurant workers came out into the alley. Now at that point I had no dislike of people, in fact I was quite friendly with many of the people who worked there. This particular evening changed my entire outlook on people. I began to walk over to the worker, at first he simple looked at me and laughed. Then he shouted, “Get outta here you little runt!” And he tried to kick at me, I jumped back a small ways and I froze. I was confused; I couldn’t understand fully what was going on. I had always been nice to these people, and until now they had been nice to me. The man began to pick up rocks from the ground and throw them at me. The first few rocks didn’t hit me; they just bounced off the ground next to me. Then he finally got me, right in my face. I howled in pain as I turned to flee. As I whimpered and ran, I heard that man laughing. That sound has haunted me ever since, and since then I have had very little trust in humans. There are a few exceptions though, but you’ll find that out soon.
At first my left eye was completely swollen shut, so I didn’t know the extent of the damage. After the next few days, I was finally able to open my eye. I was scared, I couldn’t see clearly out of it. That worker’s rock had caused me to go partially blind in my left eye. And that is truly where my dislike of people began. After that incident, I tried as hard as I could to avoid any contact with humans. I started roaming around at night, occasionally finding traces of my family. I grew more hopeful that they were surviving as well as I had been. My survival now hung by a single question. Would my partial blindness make it impossible for me to survive?
After two months since our initial abandonment, I got a wake up call. I was walking through a new alley at about two in the morning, when I saw another dog laying by himself in the middle of everything. I walked cautiously over to him. I recognized him at once, it was my brother. And he was alive, but injured. At first glance he looked the same as I remembered him, now my brother is a pure black Dalmatian with white paws, the only difference I noted was the way he looked at me as I approached him. The look in his eyes spoke volumes. I figured he had been attacked by another dog, and he was showing his distrust as I went to speak with him. He recoiled slowly as I approached. I said plainly that I wasn’t going to hurt him and that I was his brother. He gave me a slightly puzzled look, and then he stopped backing away. As I approached him, I noticed the hair on the back of his neck began to stand. I knew immediately what the problem was. It was the way I looked; my eye and the scar that ran across it were confusing my brother. I knew he recognized my scent, but I no longer truly resembled myself as I had months ago. My brother, Shadow as he is called now, sniffed me cautiously. After an awkward moment or two, he finally calmed down.
“I wondered when I might find someone. Sorry I was so edgy.” Said Shadow as he came over to me and sat down.
“I understand. Don’t worry about.” I lied. I did worry about it. I was worried that if I found any of my sisters, they would react the same way. And in all honesty I didn’t understand. He was, as I had guessed, attacked by another dog. None of his injuries were serious, I knew by looking at him that he stood a better chance at survival than I did. Being a near solid black Dalmatian, he could easily escape from sight into any shadow. This ironically is where he got his name. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We talked for hours, long into the night and early into the morning. Discussing what we had been doing, had we seen any of our sisters, and stuff of that nature. Now I’m going to say this now because it is relevant to this part of the story, after this point my brother Shadow became very silent. He no longer talks on a regular basis to anyone. He doesn’t even really talk to me anymore, but anyways. After a while Shadow looked tired, so I left him next to a row of trash cans, and I went farther up the alley to try and find some food. At this time I became quite good and catching some of the rats that lived in that area. I know what your thinking, how can you eat a city rat? Well all I have to say is, food is food. What difference does it make what shape it’s in? And as I said before, a starving dog won’t argue with any kind of food.
Shadow and I stayed together for a few days, up until he vanished. I had just come back from the next alley over, carrying a nice chunk of steak, when I noticed he was gone. I dropped the steak and frantically sniffed around for him. I found and followed his scent towards the street, and then I got a shock. Humans, they had taken him. I was crushed. My brother had been taken away from me. I trudged away from there; my heart was pained at the thought of what my brother may be dealing with. Where was he? What were the humans doing to him? I went and laid down near where I had left him, I began to cry. I felt as though my world was crashing down around me, and to make matters worse, there was nothing I could do about it.
I sank into a deep depression, and I continued to wander aimlessly in a fog of self pity. After a while of walking in this fog I became distrustful and distant. The only thing I truly cared about was finding what was left of my family and our previous life, together. I began to follow a few rules of my own, that people in general could not be trusted, and also that the only thing that matters in life is family.
My life now took a turn for the better, at first anyways. I began to look towards my own survival as a way of attaining my goal of reuniting my family. My eyesight wasn’t as big a problem as I had originally thought. I compensated the partial vision loss in my left eye by training my hearing to be sensitive. This would help me detect any danger, especially on my left side. After a day or so, I was able to pick loud commotions in neighboring allies. Around that time I heard a lot of barking coming from the next alleyway. Amongst the barking I heard another dog whining, I immediately went to investigate when I heard a large crash that sounded like a garbage can getting toppled. I arrived in time to find a small pack of dogs around another much smaller dog.
At first I was just going to move on and mind my own business, which is until I noticed the smaller dog was a Dalmatian. I had to know, was this dog one of my sisters? I charged at the pack, barking frantically. They didn’t pay any attention to me, they just sniffed at the downed Dalmatian and left, with absolutely no fuss. I approached the other Dalmatian cautiously. I found that she was unconscious, and her breathing was labored. Based on the way she was laying and the tipped over garbage can next to her told me she tried to run from that pack of dogs, and probably collided with the can. All of this explained why she was unconscious.
I gently grabbed the scruff of her neck and dragged her over to an empty box. I sniffed the box cautiously to make sure we weren’t going to run into another dog. Ironically, though I didn’t realize it at first, this was the same alley where that human hit my with that rock. Though a different box, it was the same place. Now that we were in a safe place I began to look at her, she was familiar to me. After a moment I remembered her. She was one of my three sisters, and since this moment in my story the two of us have been very close. We have a general understanding with each other. But I’ll get into that a bit later.
Anyways, I took a closer look at her as she laid there. She had a few small injuries but nothing major. A fairly good sized bump on the head, but that is obvious. After a while her breathing slowed and became more normal, and she slowly began to stir. I cheered up drastically when she opened her eyes. The moment was short lived as my worst fears were realized when she said, “Who are you?”
I knew this would happen, but I had a plan on how to handle it.
I said, “I’m your brother. I’ve been looking for you.”
“I was looking for you too. But I thought you were…gone like everyone else.” She replied mournfully. So it was as I had feared, everyone else was gone. Humans as I guessed. We began to talk, but she soon seemed to tire. So as she went to sleep I went to find us some food. Food was in good supply so I grabbed a good pile so I didn’t have to leave her to long or often. I returned to find her safe and sound. I placed the food between us and I went and lay near her. Like Shadow, she had several small injuries and again she had a very good chance for survival.
I laid there watching over her long into the night. Her breathing became labored again, but it soon subsided. The longer I watched her the more I wished we could all be back together again. The five of us a family again like we had been in what seemed like years before. I knew I was kidding myself; I had no clue where Shadow or my other two sisters were. And by the way things were looking; I wasn’t going to find them. But as you’ll see soon enough, I don’t always know what I’m talking about. At this time it had been about four and a half months since we were last all together. My sister, Bridget as she is called now, soon began to stir again. I hadn’t noticed the time pass, but it was now dawn. I asked her how she was feeling. “Better now that I found you. What have you been doing all this time? And what happened to your eye?” she replied. This was it, do I worry her about Shadow or do I just tell her that we split ways?
I took a couple hours to relay my story since our departure from each other. She just laid there staring at me intently. I definitely noted a difference in her manner from the previous day. She no longer seemed nervous around me, and I was relieved to notice that she didn’t care how I looked to her. When the time came for me to mention Shadow, I paused. Do I tell her the truth?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to tell you about our brother.” I replied.
“Just tell me the truth, I can handle it.” She said plainly. I hesitated a moment. Finally after a while I told her, about how I’d found him. And about what we had talked about, and finally about his disappearance. “I see. Don’t worry I’m sure he’s fine. Not all people are like the one who threw the rocks at you. I had a young girl give me some food to eat way back when we first split up.” She said reassuringly. But it didn’t help much. I knew that most people were kind to dogs, but what about the ones who took him? I took a moment to look around the ally where we were, I could hear people up towards the road. It was still early but a lot of people were moving around. Now, you are probably wondering where my sister got her name, and I’ll let you know in a little while. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
As that day progressed Bridget began to move around more. She was still a little off balance, but other than that she was fine. Of my three sisters Bridget is definitely the most intelligent and best looking. Anyways, the two of us had a good sized meal out of the food I had brought over from the previous day. Then we began to walk together, all the while talking. She told me about how she had kind of adopted a human family temporarily, getting a good meal at least twice a day. But they soon tried to catch her, so she was forced to run. She went on and on about how she had found ways of surviving without having to be part of a human family. I mentioned how well I had gotten at catching rats and other city dwelling rodents. At first she gave me an odd look, probably the same look you gave me when I told you about the rats in the first place, yeah that one.
But back to my tale, we moved towards the outer edge of the city. I personally had passed this area several times, but Bridget had never truly left the inside parts of the city. So needless to say this was a new experience for her. We walked till we came to the river that passed by the city. We began to walk along its bank and enjoy the sunlight. Every once in a while we stopped to get a drink. I began to hear a sound coming from behind us. But at that moment I just ignored it. Bridget was on my left side, in between me and the rivers edge. She wanted to walk there so that she could get a drink more easily. That sound I had heard now seemed to be drawing closer, I began to get nervous. Bridget seemed unaware of it, and she stopped to get another drink. But this time instead of continuing to walk, she sat down. I asked her what was wrong.
“My head is bothering me. And I lost my balance there for a moment. I just need to rest for a bit.” She replied softly. The approaching noise was now much closer. I turned to look in its direction just in time to see a young man coming towards us on a bike. I barked for Bridget to move aside quickly, but there wasn’t time. The bike shot passed us, and all I heard was my sister fall into the water. The human laughed as he sped away, I don’t like people who are mean to dogs or any animal for that matter. I turned in time to see Bridget moving away in the current, she was still weak from her injuries that she could not get away from the moving water. I ran after her, trying desperately to keep up. But it was no good, she was going too fast. I soon lost sight of her, but my knowledge of the area told me that there was a sharp bend in the river not too far ahead and a bridge there as well. She might be able to get out there.
I ran as fast as I could to try and get to that bend to render any assistance as was needed. I got there alright, but she was already on the shore underneath the bridge. She wasn’t moving, and I was too far away to tell if she was still breathing. As I went to move closer I saw them…people. They were moving down the bank towards her. I wanted to charge at them, to try and make them leave her alone. But I was no match for a human, I knew this. I soon realized that if Bridget was alive, they would help her if they could. They weren’t like the other people I had met. They very gently picked her up and began to carry her to a waiting truck. I barked out to my sister, hoping she could hear me. I barked out that I would find her again someday, and that I would never give up on her. I got no response, except for the human who turned to look in my direction. I quickly hid behind a nearby rock. He hadn’t seen me as far as I knew. I climbed up on top of the rock just in time to see them put her in the back of their truck, and begin to drive away. I tried to lean forward to see where they were going but I slipped on the wet rock and fell.
A Street Dog’s Point of View by: Trio
The story I am about to tell is very real. It tells of my life living on the streets of a small city. It runs differently than most stories, it doesn’t involve any romance, action, or anything of any real interest; so in a way there is no real point to me telling you about what I have experienced in my short life. But I feel it is important for me to explain why I am the way I am. This story begins seven months ago…
My three sisters, one brother, and I were only seven weeks old when this all began. To this day none of us have any idea why, but shortly after we were able to leave our mother, we were abandoned. We were thrown out of our nice cozy home, and out into the cold forbidding streets. For the first few days we stayed together, none of us wanting to split apart from each other. All of us afraid of what was around us. After a week of trying to survive in that one place, smelling our mothers scent, and the wasted time trying to find our way back to her; we decided as a group that we could no longer stay together. That place, was not suitable for all our survival.
So with a heavy heart and a bad feeling that this may be the last time we saw each other, I went on to face my fate. After an hours aimless walking, I found myself in a small alley next to a restaurant. The food was in good supply, and a downspout near a box provided shelter and water. My first thought was, why couldn’t we have stuck together and then come to this place. Food, water, shelter, we could have been set for life. I approached the box cautiously, not wanting to get into a fight with anything. I sniffed around the outside of it, and inside. No scents what so ever. I made myself at home. The first thing I did was start sniffing around for some decent food, not that a starving dog will argue with free meals.
For half a month I stayed there, surviving rather well. That is until; one of the restaurant workers came out into the alley. Now at that point I had no dislike of people, in fact I was quite friendly with many of the people who worked there. This particular evening changed my entire outlook on people. I began to walk over to the worker, at first he simple looked at me and laughed. Then he shouted, “Get outta here you little runt!” And he tried to kick at me, I jumped back a small ways and I froze. I was confused; I couldn’t understand fully what was going on. I had always been nice to these people, and until now they had been nice to me. The man began to pick up rocks from the ground and throw them at me. The first few rocks didn’t hit me; they just bounced off the ground next to me. Then he finally got me, right in my face. I howled in pain as I turned to flee. As I whimpered and ran, I heard that man laughing. That sound has haunted me ever since, and since then I have had very little trust in humans. There are a few exceptions though, but you’ll find that out soon.
At first my left eye was completely swollen shut, so I didn’t know the extent of the damage. After the next few days, I was finally able to open my eye. I was scared, I couldn’t see clearly out of it. That worker’s rock had caused me to go partially blind in my left eye. And that is truly where my dislike of people began. After that incident, I tried as hard as I could to avoid any contact with humans. I started roaming around at night, occasionally finding traces of my family. I grew more hopeful that they were surviving as well as I had been. My survival now hung by a single question. Would my partial blindness make it impossible for me to survive?
After two months since our initial abandonment, I got a wake up call. I was walking through a new alley at about two in the morning, when I saw another dog laying by himself in the middle of everything. I walked cautiously over to him. I recognized him at once, it was my brother. And he was alive, but injured. At first glance he looked the same as I remembered him, now my brother is a pure black Dalmatian with white paws, the only difference I noted was the way he looked at me as I approached him. The look in his eyes spoke volumes. I figured he had been attacked by another dog, and he was showing his distrust as I went to speak with him. He recoiled slowly as I approached. I said plainly that I wasn’t going to hurt him and that I was his brother. He gave me a slightly puzzled look, and then he stopped backing away. As I approached him, I noticed the hair on the back of his neck began to stand. I knew immediately what the problem was. It was the way I looked; my eye and the scar that ran across it were confusing my brother. I knew he recognized my scent, but I no longer truly resembled myself as I had months ago. My brother, Shadow as he is called now, sniffed me cautiously. After an awkward moment or two, he finally calmed down.
“I wondered when I might find someone. Sorry I was so edgy.” Said Shadow as he came over to me and sat down.
“I understand. Don’t worry about.” I lied. I did worry about it. I was worried that if I found any of my sisters, they would react the same way. And in all honesty I didn’t understand. He was, as I had guessed, attacked by another dog. None of his injuries were serious, I knew by looking at him that he stood a better chance at survival than I did. Being a near solid black Dalmatian, he could easily escape from sight into any shadow. This ironically is where he got his name. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We talked for hours, long into the night and early into the morning. Discussing what we had been doing, had we seen any of our sisters, and stuff of that nature. Now I’m going to say this now because it is relevant to this part of the story, after this point my brother Shadow became very silent. He no longer talks on a regular basis to anyone. He doesn’t even really talk to me anymore, but anyways. After a while Shadow looked tired, so I left him next to a row of trash cans, and I went farther up the alley to try and find some food. At this time I became quite good and catching some of the rats that lived in that area. I know what your thinking, how can you eat a city rat? Well all I have to say is, food is food. What difference does it make what shape it’s in? And as I said before, a starving dog won’t argue with any kind of food.
Shadow and I stayed together for a few days, up until he vanished. I had just come back from the next alley over, carrying a nice chunk of steak, when I noticed he was gone. I dropped the steak and frantically sniffed around for him. I found and followed his scent towards the street, and then I got a shock. Humans, they had taken him. I was crushed. My brother had been taken away from me. I trudged away from there; my heart was pained at the thought of what my brother may be dealing with. Where was he? What were the humans doing to him? I went and laid down near where I had left him, I began to cry. I felt as though my world was crashing down around me, and to make matters worse, there was nothing I could do about it.
I sank into a deep depression, and I continued to wander aimlessly in a fog of self pity. After a while of walking in this fog I became distrustful and distant. The only thing I truly cared about was finding what was left of my family and our previous life, together. I began to follow a few rules of my own, that people in general could not be trusted, and also that the only thing that matters in life is family.
My life now took a turn for the better, at first anyways. I began to look towards my own survival as a way of attaining my goal of reuniting my family. My eyesight wasn’t as big a problem as I had originally thought. I compensated the partial vision loss in my left eye by training my hearing to be sensitive. This would help me detect any danger, especially on my left side. After a day or so, I was able to pick loud commotions in neighboring allies. Around that time I heard a lot of barking coming from the next alleyway. Amongst the barking I heard another dog whining, I immediately went to investigate when I heard a large crash that sounded like a garbage can getting toppled. I arrived in time to find a small pack of dogs around another much smaller dog.
At first I was just going to move on and mind my own business, which is until I noticed the smaller dog was a Dalmatian. I had to know, was this dog one of my sisters? I charged at the pack, barking frantically. They didn’t pay any attention to me, they just sniffed at the downed Dalmatian and left, with absolutely no fuss. I approached the other Dalmatian cautiously. I found that she was unconscious, and her breathing was labored. Based on the way she was laying and the tipped over garbage can next to her told me she tried to run from that pack of dogs, and probably collided with the can. All of this explained why she was unconscious.
I gently grabbed the scruff of her neck and dragged her over to an empty box. I sniffed the box cautiously to make sure we weren’t going to run into another dog. Ironically, though I didn’t realize it at first, this was the same alley where that human hit my with that rock. Though a different box, it was the same place. Now that we were in a safe place I began to look at her, she was familiar to me. After a moment I remembered her. She was one of my three sisters, and since this moment in my story the two of us have been very close. We have a general understanding with each other. But I’ll get into that a bit later.
Anyways, I took a closer look at her as she laid there. She had a few small injuries but nothing major. A fairly good sized bump on the head, but that is obvious. After a while her breathing slowed and became more normal, and she slowly began to stir. I cheered up drastically when she opened her eyes. The moment was short lived as my worst fears were realized when she said, “Who are you?”
I knew this would happen, but I had a plan on how to handle it.
I said, “I’m your brother. I’ve been looking for you.”
“I was looking for you too. But I thought you were…gone like everyone else.” She replied mournfully. So it was as I had feared, everyone else was gone. Humans as I guessed. We began to talk, but she soon seemed to tire. So as she went to sleep I went to find us some food. Food was in good supply so I grabbed a good pile so I didn’t have to leave her to long or often. I returned to find her safe and sound. I placed the food between us and I went and lay near her. Like Shadow, she had several small injuries and again she had a very good chance for survival.
I laid there watching over her long into the night. Her breathing became labored again, but it soon subsided. The longer I watched her the more I wished we could all be back together again. The five of us a family again like we had been in what seemed like years before. I knew I was kidding myself; I had no clue where Shadow or my other two sisters were. And by the way things were looking; I wasn’t going to find them. But as you’ll see soon enough, I don’t always know what I’m talking about. At this time it had been about four and a half months since we were last all together. My sister, Bridget as she is called now, soon began to stir again. I hadn’t noticed the time pass, but it was now dawn. I asked her how she was feeling. “Better now that I found you. What have you been doing all this time? And what happened to your eye?” she replied. This was it, do I worry her about Shadow or do I just tell her that we split ways?
I took a couple hours to relay my story since our departure from each other. She just laid there staring at me intently. I definitely noted a difference in her manner from the previous day. She no longer seemed nervous around me, and I was relieved to notice that she didn’t care how I looked to her. When the time came for me to mention Shadow, I paused. Do I tell her the truth?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to tell you about our brother.” I replied.
“Just tell me the truth, I can handle it.” She said plainly. I hesitated a moment. Finally after a while I told her, about how I’d found him. And about what we had talked about, and finally about his disappearance. “I see. Don’t worry I’m sure he’s fine. Not all people are like the one who threw the rocks at you. I had a young girl give me some food to eat way back when we first split up.” She said reassuringly. But it didn’t help much. I knew that most people were kind to dogs, but what about the ones who took him? I took a moment to look around the ally where we were, I could hear people up towards the road. It was still early but a lot of people were moving around. Now, you are probably wondering where my sister got her name, and I’ll let you know in a little while. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
As that day progressed Bridget began to move around more. She was still a little off balance, but other than that she was fine. Of my three sisters Bridget is definitely the most intelligent and best looking. Anyways, the two of us had a good sized meal out of the food I had brought over from the previous day. Then we began to walk together, all the while talking. She told me about how she had kind of adopted a human family temporarily, getting a good meal at least twice a day. But they soon tried to catch her, so she was forced to run. She went on and on about how she had found ways of surviving without having to be part of a human family. I mentioned how well I had gotten at catching rats and other city dwelling rodents. At first she gave me an odd look, probably the same look you gave me when I told you about the rats in the first place, yeah that one.
But back to my tale, we moved towards the outer edge of the city. I personally had passed this area several times, but Bridget had never truly left the inside parts of the city. So needless to say this was a new experience for her. We walked till we came to the river that passed by the city. We began to walk along its bank and enjoy the sunlight. Every once in a while we stopped to get a drink. I began to hear a sound coming from behind us. But at that moment I just ignored it. Bridget was on my left side, in between me and the rivers edge. She wanted to walk there so that she could get a drink more easily. That sound I had heard now seemed to be drawing closer, I began to get nervous. Bridget seemed unaware of it, and she stopped to get another drink. But this time instead of continuing to walk, she sat down. I asked her what was wrong.
“My head is bothering me. And I lost my balance there for a moment. I just need to rest for a bit.” She replied softly. The approaching noise was now much closer. I turned to look in its direction just in time to see a young man coming towards us on a bike. I barked for Bridget to move aside quickly, but there wasn’t time. The bike shot passed us, and all I heard was my sister fall into the water. The human laughed as he sped away, I don’t like people who are mean to dogs or any animal for that matter. I turned in time to see Bridget moving away in the current, she was still weak from her injuries that she could not get away from the moving water. I ran after her, trying desperately to keep up. But it was no good, she was going too fast. I soon lost sight of her, but my knowledge of the area told me that there was a sharp bend in the river not too far ahead and a bridge there as well. She might be able to get out there.
I ran as fast as I could to try and get to that bend to render any assistance as was needed. I got there alright, but she was already on the shore underneath the bridge. She wasn’t moving, and I was too far away to tell if she was still breathing. As I went to move closer I saw them…people. They were moving down the bank towards her. I wanted to charge at them, to try and make them leave her alone. But I was no match for a human, I knew this. I soon realized that if Bridget was alive, they would help her if they could. They weren’t like the other people I had met. They very gently picked her up and began to carry her to a waiting truck. I barked out to my sister, hoping she could hear me. I barked out that I would find her again someday, and that I would never give up on her. I got no response, except for the human who turned to look in my direction. I quickly hid behind a nearby rock. He hadn’t seen me as far as I knew. I climbed up on top of the rock just in time to see them put her in the back of their truck, and begin to drive away. I tried to lean forward to see where they were going but I slipped on the wet rock and fell.