Ebony's Dream - Critique Appreciated ^^

[Edward]

Ebony, sleep overwhelming her, smiled and laid her head on her paws. She hated this type of life -
stealing and being stolen from, dodging cars, only with one dog in the entire
world to be her pack. Life would be more bearable if she had a proper family. Sighing,
she closed her eyes. The warm, moist air swanning up through the floor tickled
her belly and paws, but it tasted foul to breathe, so Ebony laid her head on
the hard concrete instead - preferring not to taste the scent of damp and
humans and hot air. Her eyes closing, her vision dimmed as if someone had
turned down a light, and the cold hard concrete, wet from an earlier rain, and
the hot humid air vent, sighing into her soaked tri-coloured fur, all seemed
very inviting. Her head lolled slightly as the last strand of consciousness she
possessed passed smoothly into sleep, and her troubled thoughts of the day soon
gave way into pleasant dreaming.

She dreamed...she was drifting, no, flying, weaving ghost-like around the city,
through the forest-like maze of alleyways and network of roads, like the ghost
of a great stag forever haunting the grand woodlands in which it had lived.
Humans passed by in a blur, and none could keep up with the cub's light
trotting. Dancing like a star she frolicked with the raindrops hung in the air,
jumping and her form blurring like something surreal. She swiftly turned her
head to the side and stopped laughing, and the colour blurred as if in a camera
which is not fast enough to catch the movement of a hand waving in front of its
viewer. Walking seriously, her head down as if she was carrying a heavy burden
of a dark truth or secret, flowingly into the road, Ebony passed one lane to
the middle of the road, and the view from behind was suddenly blocked by a
lorry roaring by, the after-colours wavering in the air like splotches and
strands of spiderweb or ribbon. But the sound was dulled, almost dimmed as if
one was not listening, not by purpose, just by daydreaming and not paying
attention to reality. When the swirled mess of blues and purples and reds and
orangey-yellows of the monstrous vehicle dispersed and made way for other
objects to come into view, the small wolfdog cub was nowhere to be seen. A
puddle, a small crimson puddle, lay on the road where she had stood, slowly stretching
out a finger-like line of blood down the shallow slope. The blood nestled in
the cracks and flowed neatly through the carved curves of the broken old city
road as it made its descent into the earth and down the slight hill.

Five distances away, for there are no limits nor measurements of size or time in
dreams, the small black and brown and white wolfdog walked quickly, her head
held high and her coat splattered with fresh warm blood. Her now adolescent
body was slim and healthy, having lost all the puppy fat and, if the huge
tender chunk of meat in Ebony's jaws was anything to go by, having eaten very
well over the years. There was blood spattered in irregular patterns over some
of her coat, but no wounds, so one must assume...no, it's a dream. It could be
hers. The tall bitch looked 'round her carefully. The city, it's walls and
mazes, was like a forest or a jungle to her. The cars were no more than prey
one could not eat, something as dangerous as a buffalo on an open wild plain -
it could kill a wolf in an instant but it only ever got the weak and foolish.
Humans were like bears or big cats - they ate first and left the wolves
anything they didn't want. Trash cans might as well have been bushes - they
were treated in the same way: shoved aside, urinated on, slept next to for
shelter in a fallen trash can is not much but keeps the rain of a dog's back.
Ebony crouched inside one of these metal containers, the rain pounding on the
steel canister and echoing around the middle, shrouding the dog in a veil of
meaningless noise, her prize meal clamped firmly in her jaws. Her long canine
fangs were beginning to rip deep into the red bloody beef chunk and had
punctured quite far. She blinked and the dripping red blood hit her paw.

Upon opening her eyes, Ebony's surroundings had changed completely. Her body was heavy with the burden of pregnancy, and Ebony's frame was thinner, showing that she had not eaten as well as when she was younger. In truth, with the load of
puppies curled in her belly, Ebony had been too slow to steal food. She closed
her eyes, and a small bright car hurtled past through a puddle, hurling swirls
of after-colour up behind it and throwing a bucket-load of water the wolf's
way. The water, looking much like the dancing patterns of colour after the
fast-moving vehicles, twirled and spiralled in its journey through the damp
after-rain air. Then it seemed to slow down and then stop al together for a
while. Ebony lay on her side, her pregnant belly cold from lying on the damp,
dew-showered grass of the local playground. Standing, the adult wolf tried
walking. Remembering her past with a bittersweet sadness, the adult picked up
the pace until she was running, diving through the air like she had done as a
pup. Her paws chased the breeze and her jaws snapped at the still form of a
spider hung in its web from a climbing frame. She laughed aloud, her breath
steaming in front of her - her body now contained the contaminated humid air of
the city while the park was fresh and green and chilly. Her voice was soft and
grown, and her fur shone in the light.

The three pups frolicked in the jungle of trash in the alleyway. Ebony lay on a
black bin bag, stuffed with old clothes and spilling from a tear in the side.
Her fur was sleek and glossy, and her body beautiful, even the perfect-circle
hole of a long-forgotten bullet. The three puppies were all different. One was
grey and scruffy, his breath coming out in winter puffs as he chased his
sisters in the snow. His colour was blurred as he ran, his white markings
fading and mixing with his grey undertone. The two girls were both small and
tan-coloured. They darted, laughing, from their brother, only to turn suddenly
and jump him. Their colour was left all the way on the other side of the
snow-laden alleyway they had moved so quickly, jumping and leaping at each
other. Ebony's body now had no blood stains, but she could feel herself not
being the young adolescent she used to be.

Ebony tore down the sidewalk, her markings all lost in the camera-like blur of colours.
She was all black, with only one image in her mind. The three dead carcasses of
her now-adult children, thrown into a truck with a bullet mark where they had
had their heads shot through. Strays were being rounded up, and the contrails
of colour left from Ebony's back gave her away as much as if she were six foot
tall. Her body was frailer but fast, but she knew it wouldn't be long until the
dog-catchers caught up with her and shot her too. She feared the worst, that
she would soon meet her brother and mate and her children in heaven. Her paws
pounded and slapped the paving stones and she turned a corner in a futile
attempt to escape.

It was that road. The road the elderly she-wolf had crossed all those years ago,
the road that lead her into a feverish adulthood, never to return. Her old
half-blind eyes lighting up with hope, the bloodstained bitch took a few steps
into the road. The city was like a forest, once again. Through her age she had
come to believe everything to be natural, that walls were thick rows of trees
and trashcans were bushes. Gleefully the wolfdog stray ran out in front of a
large colour-blurred car in an attempt to cross the road back to childhood
again. She could see it in front of her: her brother, wagging his speed-blurred
tail, her three unborn children, waiting patiently for their mother to return
to them, and herself. The young Ebony smiled and stepped a step closer to the
edge to meet herself again. Ivory swung his head round to grin at the young
Ebony, and the thin strap of leather holding his necklace around his neck came
undone. The pendant fell from his neck to the floor. Then everything happened
in slow motion: as the pendant fell Ivory's face turned to horror, and the
elderly Ebony halted and swung her head sideways to face the oncoming car. It
came like a rhinoceros, charging at her with seemingly no intention of
stopping. Ebony's old dull-gold-yellow eyes widened - there was no time to
move. Everything sped up as the car slammed into her fragile body. It rumbled
right over her and didn't even stop. It turned the corner.

Ebony looked across the road to her old self through her blood-clouded eyes. The
wolves of her past and future could not cross the road, and stood there howling
in anguish. Ebony sighed, with sadness and sorrow, and with relief. She had
realised something while her broken body lay there dying. The old Ebony wasn't
her: it was her mother. the mother who had tried to cross the road for her pups
and been hit by a speeding car. The young Ebony was the real Ebony. Ebony's
mother sighed, closed her eyes for the final time, and lay there peacefully as
the last presence of life was gently pulled from her soul.