A chilling breeze within the valley had invaded the tight corridor of space behind the shed. There was a storm brewing, with dark grey clouds creeping over the vista. The atmosphere held a tingling tension of inevitable, looming rain and yet the air was dry as a bone. The whistle of the wind was relentless, an abrasive screech like that of an impatient train conductor demanding carriages be sent away at once. The old dog shook and shivered. Nearby trees shook as well, swaying in one direction before violently snapping into the other which, in consequence, frightened the life out of the dog. Within the valley, lightning struck a bush, setting it alight and making audible the crisp and light crackle associated with burning. Not that the old hound saw or heard it.
The old dog finally appeared, in essence, old. The exuberant youth that had once so easily washed over the dog had been flushed out of its cold eyes, its spirit of vitality long departed. You could hear the ever-slight crack of its back legs as it whimpered, slowly rising from its perch. The cool whites of the dogs’ pupils had disappeared, leaving only the faint reflection of its sympathetic beholder. What was once a glorious golden coat had had been reduced to a dirty beige rag. It did not smile; its mouth slumped down in a mound of flesh and slobber. The old dog’s feet were cut and bruised. It frequently lost balance as blood flowed through and dripped out of its scaly nostril. The dog, called ‘Buddy’, was dying of a thick tumour that had originated in the nose and swiftly spread to the eyes, throat and lungs.
The old dog was not always old and neither was it always sick. The old dog was once a young dog, a baby puppy born blind and of no ill. Buddy was what his breeder called ‘spirited’ (codeword for ‘asshole’). Everything Buddy did was ardently headstrong and defiant of human sensibilities - no, he had to flip over his food bowl when he didn’t like what was given to him. It was only right for him to refuse to sleep in the basket next to his sister, and instead lie on the very end of the bed belonging to his domesticator. At first his domesticator, my father, hated the idea of what he deemed ‘a dirty animal’ sleeping in his King-sized bed… but as time passed he grew fond of the warm fur nestling against his feet at night. There was one time, when Buddy could still be held in ones arms like an infant, that the dog committed its most devious crime. I had just arrived home from a pizza making competition, which I won by the way, and left my winning meal to sit on the countertop. I left the room for just a minute to bask in my victory, which in foresight was an error on my part. I come back into the kitchen and to my shock I see mangled plastic, tomato sauce all over the tiles and half a pizza ripped through the molars of a very guilty puppy. I was rightfully furious, but my father just giggled and told the dog he was a ‘good boy’. To this day, I still wonder what that pizza tasted like.
Buddy howled and whined louder - he wanted to go back into the pantry to finish his chicken dinner. He couldn’t – the butt of the rifle had already fallen hard into the muddy turf. My father wiped a bead of sweat out of his eyes and sighed loudly.
‘Fuck!’, yelled my father, struggling to hear himself over the now heavy rain.
Buddy stared at the gun my father held, confused and frowning. The dog had no idea what it was. I stayed quiet watching the dog and the now caretaker executioner; I had no idea what to say.
‘Those fucking - veterinarian bills’, he mumbled under his breath, closing his eyes as his chest visibly quaked. I don’t know why I chuckled after he said that.
‘We have no other option’, was how I presented it to my father. ‘Fuck you’, was his immediate response, but he soon submitted to my senses. We hadn’t the money for the needle and Buddy was needlessly suffering. Logically, it made perfect sense. It was inevitable. This was something I had come to terms with a long time ago – the adult and sensible realisation that nothing could last forever. These are the very facts of life: what starts innocent will eventually have said innocence ripped away forever. What begins adorable and precious becomes a nuisance, an irritating burden and a drain on resources. This was all inevitable and I’d known this all for a very long time. The problem for my father was that the inevitable was no less painful than the ‘evitable’, despite prior warning. He believed the logic of minimising suffering quickly became illogical at the stipulation that we’d have to be the ones to ‘minimise the suffering’. Even less logical, he believed, immense pain being a requirement to ‘minimise suffering’. My father loathed the fact he’d have to suffer ‘heavy and personal trauma’ in order to ‘bury the hatchet’ and ‘minimise the poor dog suffering’.
‘This is fucking bullshit! Fifteen fucking years I’ve woken up to this dog by my feet! Fifteen fucking years!’, my father screamed. ‘Bullshit! Bull-SHIT!-’
Mhm. It was. My father’s neck veins tensed towards the heavens. Father’s jaw seized tighter than a rattlesnake around its prey. He continued to mumble to himself, eyes gleaming and wide open. With one hand he held the rifle and with the other he grabbed three bullets from his jacket pocket (I advised three in the case that one wasn’t enough). With shaky fingers, he carelessly grabbed one of the bullets and prepared to load. Until it carelessly slipped out of his hand. I was right; One bullet wasn’t enough. The metal of the bullet gleamed out from the top of the mud, shining against the rim of my glasses. He grabbed another bullet from his pocket and more carefully this time loaded it into the magazine. In one swift motion, my Father slammed the magazine shut and held the rifle with a viper grip. Still shaking, he aimed the gun toward the torso of Buddy. Buddy looked up now (still naïve as to what was about to happen) and smiled toward my Father, his ragged tongue hanging out as he panted toward him. The old dog was caked in mud and soaking wet, one of his eyes closed because of the cancer, his legs buckled completely from his now small and bony frame, his throat ashy and conspicuously hard to the touch, his nose blown open and the division between his nostrils long worn away, his one good eye flittering away, and yet, the old dog still smiled.
On his first day with my Father, Buddy was ecstatic. Every year, Buddy would bark on his birthday as if he could sing along to the words of the song. Fifteen years later, he still wakes up with a jolt before releasing an enormous smile. After all these years, the old dog was still happy, defiant against even death itself.
‘I can’t do it’, my father said, breathing louder now.
He loosened the grip on his rifle, letting it slip out of his hands and into the river of mud flowing around his black rubber boots. My father held his hands onto his knees and breathed an immense sigh of relief. Buddy grinned and Father smiled too, a big toothy smile that Father only brought out for special occasions.
‘Who’s a good boy?’, my Father whispered, acting as if Buddy didn’t already know the answer. ‘Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy. My beautiful baby boy, my best friend in the world. I love you so much‘.
I had seen enough. Before anybody could say anything else to delay the inevitable, I picked up the rifle, aimed and fired the bullet through the stomach of the dog. The deafening blow of the bullet coming out of the barrel awoke my Father from his trance. Buddy slumped onto his side, eyes wide open. The light had gone out. Blood seeped out of its nose and mouth. I hated theatrics at the best of times, and now was not the time for melodrama – I had to take action.
‘Y- you - you killed Buddy’, my Father whispered.
‘Buddy died a long time ago’, I replied. ‘I did what had to be done.’
My father glared at me with a look of pure resentment. Hatred flared up and down his eyes – it was a look that could kill. That level of intensity couldn’t be maintained for long though. Tears formed at the edges of his eyes while his teeth grit. Shaking his head, he continued to mumble more wildly and incomprehensibly before breaking down completely. Dropping down to his hands and knees he appeared much like a farm animal, sobbing in the mud. My Father’s body convulsed as it hyperventilated, just like the body of the old dog did. For him to act like that to me? At a time like this? So cold. The job was done. The old dog was dead.