– Fiction by Logan Ward – Featured in Issue 21 of Dreamers Magazine.
She walks on four legs, and they are weak. She makes her way towards the steps. She cannot see where they start, where they fall off. She doesn’t need to; she hasn’t for a long time. She sits at the edge of the known universe, awaiting David to come and lift her meager bones down the stairs to some other plane, panting.
Always so tired. So confused.
She closes her eyes, concentrating. It doesn’t do anything to her vision, of course, but the habit stands. The best she can do is remember being able to remember what the world around her looks like. When she still had the strength, she was able to trace the walls with her nose, the perimeter and the smells in between bore a sturdy textured canvas upon which her memory could be painted. Peanut butter on toast, house plant soil. The nooks and crannies did well to hold the hues for so long, but not long enough.
It all washed away.
The record of her brave circumnavigation was lost in the storm of her own forgetting. The stairs became unmanageable then. What was once the well-trodden expanse from bed down to kibble and water bowl became an unknowable void, a blindfolded tightrope walk across a windswept channel where any false paw spelled doom.
David became her champion, sweet David. There was solace in their routine. He carried her every morning down the stairs to the kitchen, setting her down in front of her bowls to eat and drink while he brewed his coffee. When she was finished, he would scoop her up again. She was not a small dog, but in her withered age she cradled comfortably in David’s arms as he sat at the kitchen table, sipping his coffee and rocking her gently. It was an unfortunate privilege for him to be able to hold her like so. She would gaze up at him longingly, but, like the
boundaries of their home, David’s appearance was long lost to her failing mind. It saddened her greatly to not know his face.
Today was different. David did not stop when she was expecting to be let down to the ground. The rhythm of their
day was interrupted. She could feel his breath catching, held against his chest. It was discordant. She lifted her head to lick his face. It was wet and salty.
They kept walking until they were out the front door and outside. David didn’t usually take her out until much later
in the day, perhaps an early walk? She welcomed the light breeze flowing through the scruff of her snout, carrying
scents and sounds that situated her. Wet asphalt baking in the sun, a recent rain. She could make out the chittering of squirrels nearby. She felt, as she always had, the incessant urge to violently point her nose towards the animal whilst lifting her left forepaw and erecting her tail. She fought off the urge now, for she did not want to cause a stir in David’s arms. Her rivalry with the local squirrels was epic and storied; she would let them win this one.
She heard another door open, and David soon laid her gently onto a cushioned surface. Even through the fog of memory, the scent of this place was unmistakeable: the backseat of the car. David soon climbed into the front seat. She felt the thrum of the engine vibrate through her as they began to drive. To where, she did not know. David called her name sweetly from the driver’s seat as they cruised.
“Oh, Scruffy. My Scruffy.”
She usually loved to hear him call her name. She knew it not by its meaning, an apt description of her russet brown curls, but rather the combination of sound that meant her. Today it sounded wrong, like it was broken. Like it pained him coming out of his throat.
She could not tell how long it was that they’d been driving when eventually they came to a stop. It was a long time
before they left the car. They sat there, waiting. Finally, she heard David open the door and get out. He opened the door beside her and crawled in, nestling his head against hers. He shook and wailed. She hated the idea that he was in pain, that she could not plainly see why. She licked his face, nuzzled her nose against him, knowing all his smells.
David took her up in his arms and carried her from the car. He was still suffering, but he didn’t seem to be shaking anymore. She knew there was something wrong, but she felt safe with David. They entered through another door into somewhere foreign; she did not know the smells or sounds of this place. It was quiet, void of scent, sterile and disorienting.
David laid her down onto a flat, cold surface. She began to panic, to whine. Why was he leaving her?
She was startled by another pair of hands touching her. Who was this? She growled. It had been so long since she’d bared her sparse teeth, she did not know where the sound came from within her. She was scared. She thought David had truly left her until she felt his face in front of hers again. She licked his face, his salty wet face, his smell.
She settled.
A sharp jab of pain pounced in her leg. She tried to react against the pain, bite at its source, at the stranger, but she
did not have the strength. She focused on her David. She was tired now, so very tired.
Maybe… maybe she could… she should just sleep a little bit now. Maybe when she woke up…
Her and David would be back… home…
She…
She dreams.
***
She walks on four legs, and they are strong.
She is powerful. Immense. She emerges from the treeline out onto a clearing of high dried grass poking through a field of white snow, her head slunk low between shoulders, muscles rippling through thick winter pelt. The sun was setting low across the horizon. She knew she would need to find him soon. Dark was near.
Her hot breath steamed the ground as she tracked his scent. Oh how she wished it was the sweet smell of prey she was following. It had been much, much too long since she’d nuzzled her maw into the sweet thick of blood, felt tendons and skin yield to the strength of her jaw. She yearned for that first snap of the neck, the crunch.
Saliva dribbled from her snarled lips. Game had been sparse ever since the man-beasts had made their way into
the valley with their clawed sticks and traps. Her brothers and sisters had competed well at first, they had strength in numbers; upon any hint of prey, even just a squirrel, they’d hold their head stiffly, with a paw raised, towards the animal to signal potential food to all others in the pack. But for all their ingenuity, the winter had been a harsh one. Their pack had dwindled, brothers and sisters disappearing in the deep snows one by one. She just had one brother left now. It was just the two of them.
She ground her teeth and did her best to ignore the emptiness of her stomach, focusing on the mission at hand.
Her lone brother had gone off on his own, hoping to find new forests to graze untouched by the stinking man-beasts. It had been too many cold nights since he had returned.
She knew neither of them would make it alone.
She followed his trail across the clearing back into dense brush. The moon was fully overhead now, its light giving life to the stillness of the pines. She crept, weaving left and right around their bases, paws falling in between roots, taking care not to crunch a leaf or stir a petal.
Her brother’s trail was fresh now. She quickened her pace to a gallop, no longer caring who or what might hear her
coming, going. She had to find him. Soon.
She stopped, almost throwing herself over her own front paws as they dug into the dirt to halt her pace. There was a new smell on the wind alongside the familiar pungency of her brother. Man-beast. What if they’d gotten hold of him? He would be in agony if he had been ensnared in one of their contraptions, yet she could not hear whelping.
The brush was still. She carried on. The intermingling of scents confused her nose, it was as if the man-beast and
her brother were one. Was it too late? Had they found him already? Skewered him, covered themselves in his thick pelt and feasted on his hardened flesh, as she imagined they’d done to so many already?
The combined smells grew thicker still as she prowled downwind. Soon she could hear the pack of them, the manbeasts. And what beasts they were. They never seemed to care much about the great noise they made, howling their strange growls to each other up into the sky as if in defiance of the danger, the peril, the savage cruelty of the cold world all around them, knowing nothing could challenge them in their great pack. She longed to howl as they did.
She soon came to the crest of a great hill and saw below her the source of the cacophony. The man-beasts had made their home at the foot of the hill, burrowing not into the earth, but using the trees themselves and the skins of their prey to fashion a semi-circle of dens.
She could see them, outside, in the middle of the semi-circle. They sat around a great shifting light that danced and cracked and threw glow into the sky from a nest of trees. It was as if they’d convinced a piece of the sun to come out of hiding and warm the winter night away just for them. The light grew so tall, she could feel the heat from the top of the hill where she scanned the scene, watched the beasts. She saw big male ones, old ones with backs bent and females holding little baby beasts, small beasts that ran and played fight. Laying with his eyes closed at the feet of them all was her brother.
He was alive. She threw herself down the hill like an avalanche, rubble, gravel and snow tumbling with her as she
pounced through the thinning pines. She cleared the treeline in a final pounce, landing at the edge of the man-beasts’ circle, teeth-bared, ready for the fight.
The man-beasts stood, startled, grabbing their clawed sticks and holding their young tight. Her brother stood as well, but he made no move to join her against his captors. She could see him better now, in the light of the man-beasts’ flame. He was no longer the gaunt frenzied thing she’d known. His fur shone, his tail wagged in a slow rhythm.
He murmured gently… beckoning her forward with a soft glance as she met his eyes.
Come.
She crept forward, teeth still bared. The man-beast closest to her dropped his clawed stick to the earth, leaning towards her with a hand outstretched. She sniffed the air. Meat. He was offering her meat. She looked to the man-beast’s face, trying to read his small dark eyes, but he was covered in thick furs.
What trick is this?
She looked back to her brother, but still he showed no sign of conflict.
She knelt towards the man-beast, offering a tentative lick at the meat. Deer. It had been so long since she’d tasted big game. She snatched the meat from the man-beast’s hand, devouring it, forgetting all her fears. And the glowing light, oh the light was so warm. She had forgotten what it was like to not feel the chill in her bones, the nothingness. She was so lost in feeling that for a time she failed to notice the manbeast scratching behind her ears with his outstretched hand. She leaned into his reach, his strange paws now exploring her haunches and alleviating itches she thought permanent.
She lapped the last of the sweet bloody flesh from her lips and looked back up to this curious man-beast. He untied the furs from around his face.
He was smaller than she thought, hidden amongst all those pelts. His head was covered with a mop of fur akin
to her own, russet brown and curled. His eyes were small, undetailed and dark, but in them…in them she saw a love she thought impossible in this cold world,
He…
***
His face was found in her failing mind. She knew him, as she always had. As she always has.
Maybe she could… just sleep a little bit now. Lay here by the warmth of his great dancing light that threw sun into the black sky, feel his hand scratch through her fur. When she woke up…
Her and David would be back… back home…
She…
She rests.
About the Author – Logan Ward
Logan Ward is a Maritime writer working out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His stories have appeared in Dug Up Magazine and Open Heart Forgery, and his poetry serial can be found on Instagram @redmudspud.
Read More Fiction Stories
Meanwhile, at Dreamers…
Writing by the Fire
It’s simple; a set of prompts, a loose structure, and time set aside to move through it at your own pace. You can follow it closely or not at all. There’s no expectation to produce anything finished.
Dreamers Writing Farm
Dreamers Writing Farm is the physical home of the Dreamers community, a quiet, creative space on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. Writers, artists, and travellers stay here throughout the year in simple, literary-themed cabins, tents, and studio suites.