Pet

[a short story]

I stand at the window, wringing my hands. Out in the yard the dog is stalking a bird along the fence line. It always fascinated me, the way his body tensed, every muscle poised for the aim of possession. He’s a machine, ready to spring, to strike and yet so patient watching—as if time could lie down and beg at his paws. The power in that stance, it was the way I first saw you. I wanted to be absorbed by a power like that.

Your desire was intoxicating. I tattooed my skin with that want; the strength it feed into my veins was a drug. The way your glance owned me, controlled me, dictated the way I flicked my hair, moved my eyes to meet yours. I wanted that want, which was a weakness you uncovered. And the more I loved, the more it fueled your power over me. I didn’t understand then, couldn’t have—or so I naively attempt to justify my youth, to transmit bravery where there was only ignorance and blindness. I didn’t know, that freedom was not losing myself in you, to you. That freedom was not possession anymore than drowning in a sea is freedom.

The dog lurches into the bush, I see the fluttering wings, the desperate attempts at freedom. And I can imagine the teeth piercing through her breast, the crunching of hollow bones, the popping gush of warm, damp blood. I cannot imagine the rush of that domination, the Godlike power of taking life, of deciding fate. I know why you crave it. I don’t blame you.

I stand at the window and examine the dish in my hands. How many times have my hands cradled this fragile glass and my mind raced to its destruction? The ability to shatter it, to lift it and hurl it across the room builds in me with adrenaline. It’s a hysteric, chaotic force—power. But I reined it in, perhaps that was my weakness. You conjured the colors to the surface of my skin with your hands, called my voice out of my mouth. And instead of hating you I loved you the more for your possession of the courage I lacked. But no, that wasn’t love; it was something else, a blurry line between admiration and horror. Fear. Like my Sunday schoolteacher talked about trusting in God. I swallowed that lesson too easily. Love and fear… she was so wrong.

The plate is cracked anyway. For all the days I stood grasping it so tightly, straining it. It began as a fracture, a tiny crack in the surface. But with each increasing pressure it breaks into little fissures, spreading like spider webs underneath, invisible lines of breaking. I am sure one day I will hold it and it will dissolve in my hands. But that is not the finale I would like, there is less satisfaction in slow decay then the hurling. Is that why you always pushed harder? Where you trying to prove your strength, your superiority, or was it that you too were taught the wrong lessons?

The dog is running to the back door, scratching to be let in. Eyes warm and brown and endless, and there are pale soft feathers curled in his gum, blood crusted on the hairs near his mouth. Why didn’t I see that, the first time I looked at you? I push him away angrily. A few months ago I would not have wept over the death of a bird, but I feel the liquid rolling into my eyes like the flash floods in this valley. He does not understand the disdain towards his accomplishment, his nature. He sulks.

The melody of that bird used to greet me in the strawberry blonde strands of sunrise, snuffed out. It is too much, too close to home. I set the plate down and saunter across the linoleum, my jaw set in determination.

I pull out my suitcase. But those eyes bore into me, pleading, infinitely melancholy and apologetic. It’s only his nature. I sink to the cool tile floor and he muzzles my shoulder, drops his head into my lap, my hand involuntarily moves to stroke him. Forgiveness of the unrepentant, another lesson I swallowed to easily, learned wrongly. Again I find myself waiting for you.