Kevin Brophy
The dog on the road
The small pup, so small it is still shaped vaguely like an embryo and seems to be boneless, pushes its soft snout against your ankle as you cross the road. It makes a pleading sound. You know it is asking for its life. You find a tap and turn it on and hope the dog will drink from it. It doesn’t. It chases your ankles, whining, calling, bleating, begging, asking for its life. You shout at it and it shows no understanding of your tone of voice, your intention, your distress, your approaching accusation. It moves along behind you, then it drifts away to another pair of ankles passing on the dusty road. This will not be enough, but there is nothing else to do. It is as if you are stuck in a dream with a dreamed dog that will never actually die but will always be dying up against your hard ankles. Your distant heart pacing away. You imagine picking up the pup and carrying it home and making a home with it, but you have no home. You are leaving this place very soon. The dog must be forgotten as quickly as possible. Inside you is a world where lives come and go like days, like wrappers, like novels, like meals, like buses, like birds, like seasons, like you. What is love without indifference, you say to yourself.