Issue 03
The Remembered Dog Will Conley Content Notes: animal death
You see, he should have died a long time ago. So I should not have expected a goodbye, should not have hoped that my hands would remember his last shuddering breath and the clatter and collapse of his ribs, shaking themselves into silence beneath a blanket of October-colored fur. I should have known it would happen how it did. I know I still would have cried if I had seen the final tremble of his paw. What I don’t know is how my tears would have tasted if I had shed them into his fur, or his water bowl, or the linoleum floor instead of letting my sorrow drip into the dirt at the county fair. All I had was the whisper of him through a screen, and all I could do was tell him: My grief will always be unfinished and your teeth will always be crooked but I will remember, always, the color of your fur.
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