FICTION | C.A. Carrington That Time of Day Waning

FICTION

THAT TIME OF DAY WANING

SHORT STORY EXCERPT

By C.A. Carrington

I’ve always pictured a pet’s death in a completely different way than I can imagine a person’s. I’ve survived so far without an ounce of religion and don’t have any particular notion of spirituality that I apply to the brief time I’m here on our planet and when that ends. But I picture a precious, loved animal’s passage like the book of children’s poems I cherished as a little girl, with watercolor shades awash and poorly off-set printed, where the colors glow beyond their objects’ defined edges in a bleeding of sorts, with my mind’s eye creating this interstitial moment:

A group of people is making a final journey. There is no apprehension, the trip across the beautiful and calm waterway is understood and accepted. They are on a large raft made of something hearty that looks like jute, but giant jute, strong and water-worthy, yet gentle and soft. They all sit, some cross-legged and relaxed, some more casual with arms stretched out stiff behind them to prop them up, looking ahead to the other side of the river.

There is a dog with them. He is skinny, long snouted, lithe

and nimble in posture, and he too sits relaxed, stretching his front legs out like sticks crossed over each other. The dog carries a great sense of calm with him and everyone is pleased he is there. The ferryman has seen a dog make the journey before, often enough to understand. The raft is a ferry by nature of its act, slowly gliding back and forth from one side of the river to the distant shore, the ferryman bringing the passengers to their destination. The sun is intense and orange near the horizon line when the raft makes the journey to the distant shore, it’s strange how the journey is always scheduled for that time of day waning.

The passengers of the ferry are silent, the ferryman too, and the only noise that can be heard above the sound of the water is the dog’s quiet chattering. His teeth click rapidly but delicately together and the quiet staccato of enamel on enamel is calming to everyone. This is the sound of happiness, of anticipation. When the ferry nears the far shore, the long grass reeds are pushed flat against the shoreline from the displacement of water. The dog gracefully leaps from the ferry onto the sturdy thickness of reeds and inspects his new kingdom as a good scout should.

The ferry’s anchor is lowered into the grassy murk, the passengers gather themselves. The lanky dog walks slowly back on the ferry, looks for a moment to the far shore from where they departed and then turns and walks next to the passengers as they disembark. A passenger, not really seeing the dog there but sensing his presence, subconsciously reaches his hand out and rests it palm-down on the dog’s head. The sun loses its intensity and orange and drops below the horizon line, and the night presents itself calm and warm.

My husband is not one to be poetic, and even if he has the

creativity and training of an artist, he has chosen the path of the very practical, down-to-earth, and is focused on accomplishing what is directly in front of him, what is tangible and needs to be done. He is stalwart, concrete.

So I was speechless when he casually said what he said, with sensitivity softening his hazel eyes, a few weeks after Gilles had died. I came home from work and while he prepared dinner in our tiny kitchen, I talked to him about our day apart. The conversation came to discussing how difficult a time my friend was having after losing Gilles, how we understood and knew it was a sad and never-ending process of grief, that time didn’t always change how it felt, how devastating and heart-hurting it was. A hole in your heart can be filled by something, someone else, but it is still there.

He thought for a second after placing a clean plate in the dishrack and turned to me.

“Did you ever think... that Gilles was her father? Didn’t you say that her father died of the same cancer that Gilles had? Lymphoma, I think? Did you ever wonder if the dog was her father and he came back to check on her, watch over her?”

And the answer was no. I was surprised he had made the correlation despite our discussion prior that Gilles was dying of the same dreaded evil that her father had, and how irony like this in life was cruel and common.

It was in total keeping with my husband’s straightforward thinking that he did not bring up the incident at the party in which Gilles had spoken. But I thought of it immediately as I wandered through the house to change out of my clothes and wash the workday from my face and hands, doing usual things but in a state of unusual surprise and wonder. I understood now that the dog had spoken and revealed his true name. Her

father’s name. Henry.

It would be difficult to first be a man, a tall ranch-hand named Henry in the wide open expanses of Montana, to find yourself at a very young age with a wife and two small children, and then suddenly be eaten alive from your own insides by cancer. It would be very unusual to awaken again as a domestic pet with a French name, to return to her, his daughter, by design of something I’ll call sacred, definitively preternatural, for a second chance for love and devotion and a dozen or so more years together.

I recognized something new in our friendship as a result, something that I could not immediately reconcile within myself. I knew she would manage her grief and survive the deep loss but I felt that her father—now gone from her life in any form— could no longer guide her, and I felt protective. She would be more vulnerable without her dog there to oversee her wellbeing.

Did I sense that he had been there to shield her from her husband? That their pet was her protector from whatever issues she dealt with from the man who pledged his love to her but secretly tracked her cell phone to know her whereabouts at all times? This man that I felt treated her as a prize and possessed a deep-seated fear that he wasn’t good enough for her. This was not something I could broach with her as a casual friend, nor something she could admit or accept in any context about the life she inhabited. It was clearly not my place to say anything and it left me feeling some kind of indescribable loss too, all this from a dog telling my husband his real name. I understood our friendship and had a concern for her I could not broach, certain I had to keep it to myself.

This was not usual for me.

I silently proposed to myself that perhaps my concern alone

would protect her. Have you ever done that, accepted a rational determination you’ve reached despite your instinct telling you otherwise? And then, silly as it sounds, managed to resolve the opposition of feelings within yourself with a completely irrational wish, like the rubbing of a genie bottle in a fable?

Perhaps I would tell my friend one day that her dog had revealed his identity, shared who he actually was and in doing so, why he was there. I knew she would at first be incredulous and might accuse me of being hurtful and absurd, as vulnerable as she was. I knew, in quiet moments later, she would understand.

Maybe she already knew that her dog was her father and would feign her reaction. But for now, I waited, for time to heal her a bit as it might do, for time to bring her a baby girl and a whippet puppy named Lewis.

I understood that Gilles had spoken to share his truth. Sometimes a pet—a dog or a cat—can stare at you in a focused, intense way that makes you wonder what is going on in their head, but it’s likely they are not thinking of anything at all. Perhaps they are just there with you, as they know they are meant to be. Watching over you.

There are things we cannot see but can sense in this world, and most of what is good is apparently not so apparent, a subtle player behind the scenes keeping a caring eye on us and creating some fairness and affection to bring balance to the brutalities. A cynical irony that profanes our lives yet sustains and upholds us too, like triumphant epiphanies. But what to do with the concept of a talking dog, a reincarnation of a man watching over a loved one? Beyond holding my cat a little more tightly despite his single squeak of protest, and loving my husband for his keen brain despite a chosen brevity for words, what to do?