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The bright blue car zipped down the highway, sun shining down on the reflective surface. A gentle breeze shook tree limbs and the air smelled of ripe fruit and freshly cut grass. Not a cloud obscured the blue sky.
Within the car a human family sat, singing along to a summer playlist while on the trip to a family vacation at a waterpark.
The windows were rolled down and a fresh breeze wafted through the car. Although the wind coming from the booming windows was much more powerful than the breeze outside it.
Conan, the family dog, sat curled in the back of the small van. He hadn’t felt well since they had gotten on the road, and now his stomach was threatening to expel its contents.
The dog swallowed as he felt the hot liquid rising in his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut, he curled up tighter, determined not to puke in his family’s new car.
With every sharp turn of the road his stomach tried to force bile up his throat. The smell was overwhelming, every breath causing nausea to roll over him with a vengeance. He struggled to keep his frothing stomach calm, refusing to open his eyes. Even so, the bright sunlight cascaded over him, and his abdominal muscles were twisting themselves into a painful knot. His gut wanted to rebel, wanted to spew its contents from his mouth all over the car, but no matter how hard it lurched Conan kept his mouth shut and swallowed back the nausea.
“Conan!” Maria shouted from the driver’s wheel, “Sit up, pup. Sing with us!” She shouted over the music, turning the knob to increase the volume.
The extra sound only made Conan’s stomach twist into tighter knots, vomit bubbling up his throat. Forcing it back down, he pretended not to hear his family’s shouting.
To his dismay, Archie reached back and started to shake him playfully, sending waves of nausea rolling over him. “C’mon Conan! We didn’t get you to sit there all day!” The kid shouted.
He came to the conclusion that he would not be able to shake the human’s attention unless he complied. So, raising his head painfully, eyes watering, Conan swallowed again, feeling saliva fill his mouth as his stomach lurched.
“Sing!” Mark shouted as the family began to sing along with the blaring music.
When Conana didn’t immediately start to howl along with them as he normally did, Archie turned around and screamed over the music, “Sing, Conan, sing!”
Conan fought back the urge to vomit once more, his stomach was beginning to get angry at his attempts. He raised his head to the sky and started to howl.
Very bad idea. Almost instantly, as if his stomach saw the opportunity, he felt something rise in his throat. He dropped his head, throat muscles working to their full extent to force the digested food back into his agitated stomach.
“Come on boy, sing the song of your people!” Mark encouraged cheerfully.
But he just couldn’t. It was taking all the energy he could muster just to fight his stomach’s heaves as it struggled to purge whatever was within it
His eyes were watering more now, and he was fairly certain his body was shaking. However, he couldn’t focus on that, his gut was churning, rebelling against the aspect of keeping its contents.
He was going to need to empty it. But he managed to force the liquid back down once more, causing terrible nausea to wash over him, intensified as he felt the car’s movements.
“Fine, be that way,” Maria said disappointedly, “We’re here anyway.”
The car pulled into a parking spot and the family threw the doors open, excited for a fun family vacation. Unfortunately, Conan was not going to get to enjoy it.
“Let’s go boy!” Archie shouted, throwing open the back door to allow his dog to leap out.
But Conan didn’t want to move, his abdominal muscles were working forcefully to expel their contents and he really didn’t want to vomit, whether in the car or not.
Nevertheless, Archie’s insistence forced the nauseated dog to haul himself out of the car, stomach churning, and follow his master over to the dog pool.
Every step in the hot sun was torture, Conan’s gut had gotten really fed up with his attempts to silence it and the heat only made it worse.
“Go play!” Archie shouted, pointing at the dog pool before running after his parents.
Conan needed to find a place to empty his stomach, fast. He could feel the hot liquid slowly rising in his throat, coming to a stop at the base of his esophagus.
“Hey, new here?” He heard a friendly voice cut through his haze.
Swallowing, he choked out, “Y-yeah,” Before his stomach twisted and the bile in his throat rose a few inches, threatening to explode.
The friendly dog walked over to him, he had seen many dogs dragged here by their owners in long car rides and recognized the symptoms of motion sickness. “You gonna be sick? ‘Cause if you are, I suggest you do it over in the bushes, the dogs here can be brutal.”
Conan looked up at the dog, trying to force the bile down. This time he failed. His stomach lurched and retched its contents to the ground, they forced their way up his throat and were finally expelled from his mouth.
A burning pain filled his gut as it forced him to puke again, ejecting the digested dog food from his irritated stomach.
When he was finally done his hunched-over form was shaking with the exhaustion of vomiting. He was panting and his stomach churned uncomfortably, every movement causing it to lurch and threaten to explode again.
The eye of every dog was on him, some of them were muttering to each other and others just looked plain disgusted.
Conan drew a shuddering breath, feeling embarrassment rise above the haze of pain. “Uh, I-”
The friendly dog cut him off, “Give the new guy some slack, okay? I know at least three of you who puked when you first got here. Dogs aren't meant for cars,” He said sternly. The dogs slowly went back to what they had been doing before, some eyeing Conan disgustedly.
Conan’s stomach seemed to be deciding that it was still not finished with him.
“Sorry, they’ll forget about it real soon. I’m Koda, by the way,” The dog said, smiling gently at the newcomer.
“Conan,” He replied shortly, fighting the queasy feeling that had replaced the burning in his gut.
Koda smiled sympathetically, “Here, I know a shady place you can rest while your owners play,” He said, leading Conan to the base of a tree.
The moment the cold shade washed over him he immediately felt much better. His stomach was starting to settle and, although it was still very sore, he didn’t feel the need to puke nearly as powerfully.
“Thanks,” He said, smiling up at Koda.
“Any time. But, fair warning, the return trip is gonna be brutal,” The lab warned.