Three Lonely Souls Find Each Other
An elegant, middle-aged woman pins another notice to a lamppost and walks away, her shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. Her slender frame is nearly lost in the swirling snowflakes when a scrawny, half-frozen dogits coat a muddy tangle of fur, its breed impossible to guessstumbles into the dim glow of the streetlamp.
Shivering from hunger and cold, the dogs eyes water as it struggles onto its hind legs to read the flyer: *Lonely woman seeks a friend.* *That must be me*, the dog thinks. *Im the truest friendloyal, devoted. I belong where Im needed.* It grabs the paper in its teeth and, summoning the last of its strength, follows the fading footprints in the snowfootprints only a desperate animal could still see.
Day fades into an even colder night. The icy pavement burns the dogs paws, its sparse fur crusted with frost. Its eyes sting from the blizzard, its body numb with exhaustion, but still it staggers forward, drawn by the call of the lonely woman who needs a friend.
Thencollapse. Its legs buckle. The snow is too heavy, too deep.
Just a few feet away, beyond a fresh drift, stands a tall iron fence. Behind it, the same elegant woman, restless with a strange预感half hope, half dreadsteps outside in nothing but a thin dressing gown and slippers, barely feeling the cold. She waits, breath fogging the air, for whatever fate is coming.
Suddenly, the snow at her feet shifts. Something small and half-dead emerges, a crumpled flyer clenched in its jaws, its eyes brimming with trust.
The woman gasps. There, barely legible on the soaked paper: *Lonely woman seeks a friend.*
Gently, she scoops the frozen creature into her arms and rushes inside. A quick search brings up an emergency vets number, and with a trembling voice, she begs for help.
Miraculously, the dog survives. The kind but no-nonsense vet prescribes medication and recommends a proper diet. With no other calls that evening, he stays for tea and homemade shortbread, chatting about his work. Hes unmarriedwomen never understand why he spends his nights stitching up injured strays instead of clubbing or chasing interns. They dont care for stories about animals, only the sparkle of jewellery, not the grateful gleam in a rescued creatures eyes.
The woman listens, her own eyes alight. Do you have many patients at the clinic? she asks.
Too many, he sighs. Holiday accidents, poisonings, cruelty cases. Ive got rounds in an hourbandages, IVs. On call tonight.
Let me come, she insists. I can help. I know how.
A year later, their cozy cottage smells always of freshly baked biscuits, shared with a glossy, well-loved dogand each other.
