When melancholy strikes,
and my laundry piles up,
a 13-year-old bloodhound
the size of two American footballs
materialises between the layers of rough jeans, synthetic wools,
and a couple freshly washed pairs of thongs.
Here he slobbers.
Profusely.
Heaving in heavy distress,
as if to bring to my attention the gravest offence of my existence –
that he has NEVER, not ONCE,
been taken on a walk
in all his 13 years of living.
Panting like an old church organ,
wheezing from some inner pipes
that haven’t seen oil since the Baroque period.
His tongue unfurls like parchment.
His eyes say: you owe me.
And maybe I do.
Pulled by a force larger than gravity,
the poor pup spasms toward the door,
his crimson lids oxygenating like wet petals in bloom.
Crushed in rough asphalt. All wrinkled.
So we begin –
a glimpse of leather (was it cherry red? or jaundiced yolk?),
I can’t remember. But,
the back leg, arthritic and askew,
threaded through the harness like a needle with regret.
And then – his pilgrimage.
Across campus. One square metre at a time.
It took us three days
to get from Bay and St. Joseph to Spadina.
Wheeze – slap.
Wheeze – heave.
Wheeze – “come on, you can do it!”
Wheeze – “Bach!”
The bureaucracy of thawing begins.
And here we stand in line
for three days straight,
as if time is something to be queued for
and never earned.
His body, a furry accordion,
creaks and folds with every step –
matching the wet ache
in his wine-filled goblet eyes.
Hound hath summoned
the thing I cannot deny.
This is the rite of karmic correction:
dragging the reincarnated’s sacred dog shit
an extra block
to find a garbage can
already overflowing with refusal.
To be a better human.
A better walker.
A better dog.
BUT THE DOG CAN’T HOLD IT IN.
And you can’t either.
So you and Bach bond,
both pissing into the same bush
like prophets too exhausted to argue about dignity.
But we must go.
No—you don’t understand.
We must go.
Past the law building.
Past the library.
At every statue,
he pauses with biblical intent.
He needs to shit on the horse.
And not just any horse –
the one cast in bronze,
patina protruding from years of denial.
He circles the relic three times,
counterclockwise,
like a monk in molasses,
his procession made of grit and glands,
his bowels and his bark converging on something older than need.
Something almost –
musical.
