Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 4 August 2012

issue 04 August 2012

One second the spaniel was sitting in the window seat, looking out of the third-floor attic window at the dogs playing in the garden below. The next second she was gone.

Time slows down when things like this happen. I remember looking and her being there, and I remember looking back and wondering where she was. And I remember hearing the yelp as she landed 30 foot down.

In truth, the space between me looking and her not being there and the sound of the yelp can only have been half a second but it felt like a lifetime.

After the yelp, time speeded back up again but I wanted it to slow down. I didn’t ever want to get to that patio. I wandered around the attic room in a daze checking that the door had really been shut and that I hadn’t imagined Cydney being there with me.

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