The Day My Dog Died

They put me under and cut me open, removed parts of my spine and then glued my skin back together. Early the next morning, calling me by the wrong name, they sent me home. I was greeted at the door by familiar barking. No one else was there, though the radio was on – an old tape of Glenn Gould interviewing Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould. The dog slinked off. I gingerly climbed the stairs, undressed, and fell exhausted into bed. I may have slept for a few minutes or I may have just thought I did. The anesthesia still in my system was messing with my perceptions. I smelled ocean. A family of orcas bent on revenge for past humiliations might have been angrily battering the hull of a trawler. I tried to pretend that it all made some kind of sense. The dog reappeared, her tail pointing down, a sign that, like me, she was feeling troubled. A massive volume of water flooded into the room even as I spoke to her in my most soothing voice. No worries, I said, no worries. I would never be sure she understood.



Man Is a God in Ruins

From where I sat on the sand, it looked like a bulky carcass of some kind, a great grayish mass upon which a dozen or more seagulls perched, was floating in on the tide. The lifeguard vigorously blew her whistle. Most of the people playing in the water ignored the shrill alarm. Other beachgoers actually reacted with anger. “Whatever happened to the right to be lazy?” I heard one sunbather complain. I’m not into cosmic things, but I didn’t have a choice. The dismal clouds that had begun to gather over the bay resembled nothing so much as a band of estranged angels coming to take revenge. Only if you have ever experienced a broken heart yourself can you truly judge.