The Dogs Ashleigh Angus
The dogs had been panting outside my door for three days. I could almost feel the warmth of their breath through the wood. I knew that if I opened it, I would be pressing into black fur, a paw, an open jaw. They would tear me to pieces. The largest dog was as tall as my hips; there was another only slightly smaller, and one pup, who looked to be less than a year old. The woman who owned them lived in the flat below mine and used to take the three of them out into the shared garden for half an hour every day. She never walked them, only watched as they tore through the yard, all black fur and yellow teeth, falling into holes they had made themselves and diving into the overgrown hedges, which were sturdier than the fences that leaned behind them. They only stopped to lap the water in the shell-shaped paddle pool the toddler in 1A liked to sit in. Three naked Barbie Dolls floated, face-down, inside it. The dolls’ arms were covered in scratches and teeth marks, just like mine were. The woman never spoke to me, only ever glanced my way as I walked up or down the stairs, sometimes nodding her cigarette in greeting. I pulled the sleeves of my jumper over my palms when she did, though I should have been pulling them up; should have presented my bare wrists to her and said, ‘See? See what they did?’ The woman’s nails were as long as her dogs’, and I thought, those dogs could tear her to pieces. I had been finding black fur in my apartment for months: on the curtains, my bed sheets, my clothes, the strands so thick they sometimes became wedged in my fingertips and toes. I don’t know how they were doing it, but somehow, they were getting in. 74
