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The Lonely Heart of Darrel Sadderson
A Story by Thomas Miller
Darrel Sadderson had lived a life of quiet rejection. From the moment he could remember, love was something he could only watch from the outside, a glass window between himself and the world. His parents barely noticed him, treating him as an obligation rather than a son. At school, he was always picked last, if he was picked at all. Teachers spoke to him with indifference, as if his presence was no more than a shadow stretching across the classroom floor.
By the time he was a man, Darrel had grown used to the idea that no one would ever love him. He watched couples in the park holding hands, parents playing with their children, friends laughing in the golden glow of streetlights. It was a world he was not a part of.
One night, sitting alone in the darkened confines of his small rented room, Darrel placed a shotgun barrel beneath his chin. His hands trembled, his breath shallow. He had always believed that when the time came, it would be easy. He had lived without love—so why should he cling to life?
Then he felt something. A soft, warm touch against his foot.
He looked down and saw a stray dog staring up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. She was small, dirty, and trembling, but her tail wagged ever so slightly. Without thinking, he dropped the shotgun and reached out a hand. The dog inched forward and pressed her wet nose into his palm.
He named her Velvet.
From that night on, Darrel was never alone. Velvet followed him everywhere—through the empty streets of the town, across the railroad tracks where the wind whispered forgotten songs, and to the diner where the cook took pity on him and tossed scraps. She slept at the foot of his bed, curled up against his feet like she had done the night she saved his life. Darrel didn’t need human love anymore. He had Velvet.
For the first time, he had something that needed him.
But life had never been kind to Darrel, and it wasn’t about to start.
One autumn afternoon, he woke up feverish, his body weak. He stumbled to the bathroom, his reflection a ghost of himself. He was too sick to move. Neighbors, who never spoke to him before, called an ambulance. They took him to the county hospital, where he lay in a cold, sterile room, alone once more.
Velvet wasn’t allowed inside. She was taken away.
Darrel begged them, pleaded with the nurses to let him go, to let him find her. He would get better if only he had her back. But they didn’t listen. To them, he was just another nobody, another lonely man society had forgotten. They told him he had to stay, that he was too sick to leave.
But he had to.
The night he tried to escape, he staggered out into the parking lot, his body weak but his mind determined. In his shaking hands, he held a leash—the only thing he had left of Velvet. He wasn’t leaving against medical advice. He was going to find his only friend.
The flashing red and blue lights blinded him.
"Drop the weapon!"
Darrel turned, confused, barely able to stand.
The cops had their guns drawn, eyes filled with the coldness of men who had long stopped seeing human beings in front of them.
He tried to explain. It was just a leash. He wasn’t a threat. He just needed to find Velvet.
A shot rang out. Then another.
Darrel fell to the pavement, the leash slipping from his fingers.
In his final moments, as blood soaked into the cold asphalt, he thought he heard paws running toward him, felt the soft warmth of Velvet’s fur.
Then there was nothing.
The next day, Velvet was found at the hospital doors, waiting for a man who would never come back.