I've just submitted this to an online short story place
They don't have a bar to stories that have appeared elsewhere so long as you hold the copywrite. Added to which it'll take up to FIVE MONTHS for them to decide whether or not to take it.
So as I'm too lazy today to write something new - I've got various ideas knocking around my head at the moment and something may come up soon - have this to read instead.

As seems to be the current habit, it's in the reply.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 7 Jul 2008, 15:14, 5 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

The Leaping Dog
My camera was the first thing to go; I lifted the strap over my head and allowed the weight of it to simply slip through my tired fingers. The brown water still looks like silken chocolate – warm and inviting. It made hardly a splash as it was swallowed up, just like the dog, it went quietly, with dignity, acceptance. My purse I dug out from under the layers of winter clothes; safe from muggers and impulse buys. Credit cards, loyalty cards and cash all fluttered on the cool breeze like autumn leaves. My press card was the last thing I set free. I watched and waited until the current had taken it off. All of it, gone, set free.
When I took the brown envelope, the one containing all of the photographs and the negatives, my fingers slid under the flap easily. The photos looked older than their one month, a testament to how many times I’d studied them and how many times I’d held them. The bridge looks different from up here, incomplete; the photo took in everything, all the engineering captured in perfect greyscale. The man had been caught like a fly in the web of the iron girders; he was almost unnoticeable in that first picture. My eyes found him quickly as they had done even through a view finder – a shabby jacket, woolly hat and of course, the dog. I knew the dog was there, but in that photo all I could make out was a blur in the girders. I ripped the 10x8 print into half, half again, and again, I kept going until my hands held the puzzle and as I let go they joined the brown waters just as everything else had before them.
In that first photo everything was alright. Everything was settled. The world was captured in the perfect moment of before.
Only two photos remained and the stack of negatives. I had captured many images on that day a month ago but developed only three and they were not even before, during and after, but instead they were before, before and before. Each one a small step onwards to now. The next photo was of the dog. All I could see was the freedom, the utter freedom of flying through the air; no panic, no pain, just free. Even now I look at the image and I know there was no struggle, everything was ….right. He hadn’t fought against the man; I don’t remember even hearing a bark. He stretched his legs out as if he were running, the air lifted his shaggy coat and even though I could not see it, I’m sure he was grinning in the way that friendly old dogs sometimes do. My camera had captured a perfect moment of bliss.
Claiming it for its own, the wind snatched the black and white image from my fingers and played with it; tossing and catching, twisting and turning, it was joyous and charming until it was swallowed by the brown river.
I feel colder now. I pull my coat around me closer, hugging it to me.
All that remained in my hands was the final photograph and the envelope which had held those three moments. The last photograph.
I had still been at university when 9/11 happened and I remember how powerful the pictures, the few that were released, of the people throwing themselves out of the Twin Towers to avoid burning to death. I often wondered in the days that followed just what had gone through their minds in the last few moments before death. They’d gone to work that day just like any other day and then their lives were over but they knew they were facing death – no long warm up to it like dying of a disease. No quick realisation and release like a car accident, no, instead they had a few moments in which they could even make calls to their loved ones just to tell them they loved them, they didn’t want to die, but had no choice in the matter. And then to hurl themselves out of a window to certain death. Did they pass out as they flew nearer to the ground? Did they try to pull back in desperation? Was it all done in a moment of mad bravery? What makes someone take their life? What makes someone throw themselves into the arms of the wind?
I put the photograph back into the envelope.

And now I stand here as he did. I look down into the velvet smooth brown river. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should join him on the next awfully big adventure. I don’t know if I should stay here and wait until they come for me.

All I do know is I’m lost without him, lost without both of them – my dog and the love of my life.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 7 Jul 2008, 15:14, Reply)

Beautifully written
*click*
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 7 Jul 2008, 15:24, Reply)

Agreed
Very moving.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Mon 7 Jul 2008, 15:25, Reply)

Very good
Really nice imagery (esp. the silken, chocolate-like water) and great use of language to give a real sense of calmness, where there could otherwise be terror and misery.

Nice comparison between the dog and the 9/11 jumpers too.
( Moey, Mon 7 Jul 2008, 15:40, Reply)

Wonderful.
Very well written.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Tue 8 Jul 2008, 1:48, Reply)