short story: canine

This was back when I lived in the south side of town. Must have been in my twenties, or not long out

of them. A neighbour, Jean, came round the house and asked if I’d move a dead dog for her. It was

an old boy, had dropped for whatever reason, and Jean didn’t want the two kids to know, rather tell

them he’d went off to a dog hotel or something while they were at school. So she asks me to take it

out and bury it; said it didn’t need any kind of special burial, just some dirt on it.  

I said yes, but figuring I didn’t want to spent most of my day just me and a dead dog I picked up Bob

in my truck on the way over to Jean’s. She never told us the dog’s name, or maybe she did and I

don’t remember it. I hauled the dog in the truck, the three of us jabbering away the whole time. Then

Bob and me headed out to the woods, not far from the town. The day was brisk cold but bright. The

leaves scattering. A twig snapped with every step. We picked a spot and started digging.

Once we’d put the dog in the ground and buried it, Bob pretended to do a heartfelt prayer for the

dog, which we had a good laugh about, then I smoothed out the ground and we moved on.

Few weeks later Bob and me, drunk, down the old local. We decide to take a walk up to the spot and

dig up the dog. It was decomposing by then. The fur rotting and the skin turning green. The rib cage

protruding out. More nothingness in the eyes than when we first buried it. It sobered me up, staring

at it. We looked at it for a long time like it was a painting. After a while we laughed and chucked the

dirt back on and left.

Next time was a month or so later. Walked into Bob on both our lunch breaks and both decided to

walk up to the dog again. It looked real bad this time. Bones sticking out of the sides and the face all

scrunched up. Wasn’t as sobering as the first time, though. Was funny really, that we’d walked all

that way just to stare at some dead mut.

Must have went up there to look at it two maybe three times more. It gave us something to do. We

took Jimmy up there one time: he found the whole thing hilarious.

Last time was about a year after we buried it. Went up there by myself some lonely night. It was a

skeleton by then. Might as well have been plastic. Just stood and stared for a while with a beer in my

hand. Never went back after that.