Ran. After a stick I’d thrown. A stick. Into the woods. The dog had a good handle on irony, could always see the wood for the trees, or maybe the trees for the wood. Chased the damn stick into the autumn undergrowth, yelping and yipping. The sounds were like tearing. The ripping apart of long grass, leathery leaves in shades of russet brown, thorny brambles. Curly white fur and snarl. I waited. Swished a tennis-ball-thrower back and forth in the grass – I would trade the returned stick for a ball thrown long and high, knocked out of the park. A home run. I’m good at waiting for things to come back, so I did that for a while. I went on my phone, like everyone does, so I can’t pinpoint when the yipping and the yapping and the tearing stopped. And silence started.
Another thing to blame your husband for. Who takes the dog – your dog – for a walk and comes back without the dog – with no explanation? There one minute and gone the next? You make a noise, an outward fluppp of the lips. A writer might call it a sigh, but that’s way too soft a thing; you’re maybe hoping to kill your husband with hard pellets of air, shot from your lips like poisoned blow-darts. Doesn’t work though. He stands there, hands hanging useless at his sides, the dog leash hanging limp and empty. This is maybe the thing that decides you, finally. Half your clothes are still in your sister’s spare room since the last time, and, as you look around the flat, you see nothing of yours; nothing that makes you want to stay. This time will be final.
The man is back again. Standing where the woods open into the park. There’s a dog run nearby, and some people let their dogs off the lead in the woods too. He’s the one whose poodle went missing, and every Saturday since, he stands in the same spot, watching. Today there’s snow, and his breath makes a white fog. He wears no scarf or gloves, despite the cold. There is crashing sound from the woods, like trees being ripped from the soil. A brown bear appears between the branches. Awake. Thin. The man opens his arms with a smile. Calls ‘Princess.’ Says ‘Good dog.’ Shakes out the leash.
