He
slumbers, feels a pain in his hip, rolls over, his head on the pillow that
holds the faint scent of the Man and the Woman and wonders where they are. Then
a brighter light comes on and there are noises down the way. ‘Breakfast’, he
thinks, waking up a bit, ‘breakfast is coming….’
The
girl who smiles, the person he likes best in this place, brings him food.
“Merry
Christmas, Bela,” she says, sliding a bowl into his cage. “Christmas breakfast,
big boy.”
He
pushes himself to all fours. It’s not easy sometimes, but he knows that
breakfast will taste like home. The food he gets in this place is just like the
food he gets at home. He eats it quickly, suddenly ravenous, and pretends he is
home.
There
is faint music playing—Christmas carols, the girl told him. “We want you to
know it’s Christmas.” The sound is soothing, but it’s not the sound he eats to
at home. At home there is seldom music, but always voices are speaking—some
concerned, some curious, some outraged, some joyful. Always the voices above
his head as he eats at home.
After
each morsel is eaten, after he licks the bowl a few times, the Puli thinks.
There is no thinking while he eats. Eating is a thing in itself: smelling,
chewing, swallowing—no time for thoughts. Eating is All. While he eats there is
nothing else.
Still
tasting the taste of home, he wonders why he comes to this place from time to
time. It’s not unpleasant and the girl is so kind to him, but why does his
Man—usually the Man alone, but sometimes the Woman too—bring him to this place.
It takes no time getting used to this place, but the sounds of the other dogs
give him shivers of fear from time to time. He doesn’t think those sounds
always made him afraid. He seems to remember answering the barks with barks of
his own—but not the last few times he’s been here.
Why
is he here? Why isn’t he at home? Where are the Man and Woman and why isn’t he
with them?
The
Puli wanders to the back of his cage, sniffing and searching and finally he has
a poop. That’s what the Man calls this activity. “Have a poop, Bela,” he says
whenever they walk. And when he does, the Man, praises him.
The
Woman says it too, but sometimes she says, “Come on, Bela, kai-kai.”
The
Man and Woman have names for everything. That’s how he knows what ‘breakfast’
means when he’s here. Names for everything. It must be exhausting to remember
all the words. Bela doesn’t know them all—mostly it’s just noise. But he has
noticed there seem to be fewer words—less noise—these days. Even the voices
above him while he eats at home seem fainter than they once were.
“Office”,
that’s a word he knows. It’s where he goes while the Man looks at the big box.
The Puli has even figured out that that place is called ‘the cool room’
sometimes and the ‘office’ other times. And though it is the same place it is
different too—the door has to be shut, the door to the long, narrow, dim place.
When it’s ‘the cool room’ the door is shut and he can’t wander down the long,
narrow place to look to see if the Woman is in the room with an even bigger box
that never stays the same.
He
wishes he were in the office right now. Or even the room where the Man and
Woman eat and watch the big bright box. Or anywhere, really, at home. Rather
than here, where he lays and thinks.
But
thinking about ‘home’ makes him tired and a little sad, but more tired than
sad. So, he falls asleep.
In
the midst of the distant music and the barks of the other dogs and the sounds
of the humans doing what humans do in that place, the Puli sleeps.
And
he dreams. He dreams.
He
dreams of running through the snow. He dreams of running through the grass. He
dreams of running—just that, running. Running.
Running.
And
in that dream, nothing hurts. His hips and legs move and move and move until
the great relief of running becomes the whole dream.
Just
running.
Then
he dreams of the place the Man and Woman call ‘the big bed’.
That’s
were he spends his night and sometimes a lot of his day. He dreams of the
softness there and the scents of the Man and Woman. He dreams of laying in that
softness and hearing the water running in the shower. He dreams of the Woman,
still moist, coming from the shower to hug him and kiss him. He dreams of the Man
laying beside him looking at one of the blocks the man always has with him. He
even dreams of leaping up onto the big bed and going over to gaze out the
window at everything out there.
He
can’t leap on the bed anymore, even with the step he used to use. The Man or
the Woman has to help him up. The Woman does it better, more smoothly, but one
or the other has to help him now.
But
in his dreams, he leaps by himself, without the step, just up and up to the
softness there, and the sweet smells. Up he goes, soaring, defying gravity.
In
reality, he’s never leapt up on the big bed that is now, the way he did the one
that was before. He needed the step and used it until he needed help.
But
in his dream, he leaps, he soars, he lands with perfect grace.
Soaring.
Always in his dreams.
He
wakes from his soaring and sees one of the people has filled his bowl with
fresh water. He tries to hoist himself up. It only takes two tries and then he
is drinking, drinking, drinking.
Like
eating, drinking water takes all his attention, all his effort. It is not so
much ‘him’ drinking than it is ‘drinking’ itself. The water goes down and down
into his stomach until he backs away and belches softly.
The
people have gone now and the brighter light is off. Even the sound of what the
girl called Christmas carols is gone. The cage on one side of him is empty but
on the other side there is a large dog, sleeping against the fencing. The Puli
goes over and sniffs carefully at the dog. It is as dark as he is but has short
hair and a ridiculous long, skinny tail. The odor of the dog is not threatening
though Bela had been suspicious of him when he first came to his cage. The dog
had been trying to be friendly, snorting and wagging his tail. But the Puli
ignored him. He has come to ignore other dogs most of the time. He seems to
remember he didn’t always do that. It seems he used to study other dogs
intently, trying to know if they were a threat to his Man or his Woman—whoever
was walking with him. In the recesses of his memory is the memory of going
after the other dogs, snarling and barking and biting…whatever was needed to
keep his Man and Woman safe.
But
now he mostly just ignores other dogs, not even acknowledging their existence.
He
wanders around his cage, finally stopping to relief himself of some of the
water he had lapped up before. Here in this place, though they take him for a
walk each day, he relieves himself in his cage. The first time each time he
came to this place, the first time he relieved water or pooped in his cage, he
had held it as long as was possible. He has known for most of his life that it
is ‘bad’ to do that inside. Only outside for such things. He knows this to the
fiber of his being, but sometimes, recently, he has relieved himself even in
his ‘home’. He has been ashamed when he did—but it was mostly impossible not to,
those few times.
The
Puli lays down where he can keep an eye on the big dog sleeping in the next
cage, but not too close. He is intent on watching the dog, but the rhythm of
the big dog’s breath lulls him.
And
he sleeps himself.
And
dreams.
He
dreams of the time when he wasn’t the only creature in his home. He dreams of
all the cats he has known—the ones with short hair and long hair. The big,
annoying creature the Man and Woman called ‘Big Fatty’ and sometimes ‘fat
fuck’, though the Puli doesn’t know what those things mean. He dreams of the
two short-haired cats, the ones that went outside a lot, unlike ‘fat fuck’.
They had names too, but in his dream, he doesn’t remember them. ‘Cat’-something
was the bigger one. They all went away, even the sweet, gentle one called
‘Lukie’. The Puli never had much use for any of them but the sweet one was
okay. And he never chased them, unlike the big dog the Man and Woman’s ‘son’
(whatever that means) started bringing with them when they came. He dreams of
that dog and of the one before, the one he would run with in the yard. In his
dream, he wonders where those two (‘Lara’ and ‘Su’-something they’re called)
were when they weren’t at the Puli’s ‘home’.
But
most of all, he dreams of the little things he never really saw, that made
sweet sounds above his head, near the voices that were always speaking. The
Woman and the Man would talk to those creatures, so they must have been there.
When they were there the voices above his head were often music instead. And
the creatures would sing along. When little people came to his home, as they
sometimes did, big people would hold them up and point to the voices and the
sweet sounds. Everyone seemed to like whatever those creatures were, so they
must have been there, unseen by the Puli, but heard.
Where
are all those creatures now, the Puli wondered. Now he is the only one with the
Man and Woman. He likes not sharing attention with the others, but he does miss
the sweet sounds he heard when he was eating.
The
big dog is awake. He is barking and one of the people in this place is taking
him out of his cage. It must be ‘walk’ time, the Puli thinks. And sure enough,
as the young girls takes the big dog by Bela’s cage, she says, “Your turn next,
Bela.”
In
the time that is not now, the Puli could never walk enough. Even though he did
not much like the thing around his neck, it was worth it just to be outside and
walking, taking in all the smells and sounds of that place. It smelled
different from the walks he took with the Man and Woman—different and exciting.
“Walk! Walk!” he would think, longing to walk and walk. Longing for that.
But
that was in the time that is not now. Now he is reluctant to walk, always happy
to head back. Part of it was his hips—the dull ache there—but another part was
that like the dogs he was once so alert about, there were things on the walks
that gave him pause. Not in this place, but on the walks with the Man and
Woman. Huge things whiz by—and the enormous yellow thing that carries
children—and people riding on two wheels. All of it, that was once merely
innocent, now feels a bit threatening to him. He has learned how to turn back
from the way the Man wants him to go in such a way that the man frets and
worries about the thing around the Puli’s neck. The woman is not so easy to
turn back, but the Puli eventually wears her down.
Turning
back is now more important than walking.
The
girl comes back and puts a thing around his neck and leads him past a dozen
other cages into the outside. He sniffs and looks around for a while, but
before they go all the way up the hill and away, he convinces her to turn back.
And when she does, he is relieved and pulls to make her go back faster.
“That
wasn’t much of a walk,” the young girls says, as she puts him back in his cage
and takes off the thing around his neck. “But Merry Christmas anyway….”
Those
words again. First the sweet girl and now the young girl have said them. And he
thinks he hears the people who work in this place say the same words to each
other. The boy, who the Puli doesn’t like as much as the sweet girl and the
young girl, or even the man that’s not his Man, says back, “right,
Merry-working-on-Christmas to you.”
The
Puli does not like the sound of the boy’s voice. It is the sound of his Man’s
voice when the Puli doesn’t go down into the yard, or pulls too hard on the
thing around his neck, or won’t come in the door from the back porch, or won’t
come to be pushed up the long steps to upstairs. He hears that tone in the
Woman’s voice from time to time—but not as much as the Man’s. Had he the words
to give to that sound, he would call it ‘angry’ or more accurately ‘hurt’. But
the Puli does not have words like the people do. He has only feelings,
instincts—and those tell him about those words and the way they are spoken.
‘Walk’
thankfully over, the Puli drinks some water and flops down. He intends to watch
and wait for dinner, but instead he falls asleep.
He
falls asleep and dreams.
Christmas
dreams for the Puli.
Not
often, but sometimes, his dreams turn hurtful, not that he knows that word, but
he knows dreaming of the other places where the Man and Woman used to leave him
were not good. He dreams vaguely of the place where they were afraid of him
(though ‘afraid’ is not the word but his feeling) and didn’t bathe him or take
him out. He dreams vaguely of being taken to another place with the dog named
‘Su-something’ and Su-something not staying but he did. He did not like that
place either, not like this place where all but the boy are kind and good and
feed him.
Since
dinner is near, he dreams of eating. The eating dream is not a dream about
eating. The dream is Eating Itself. He dreams and dreams that, unable to stop
dreaming.
But
then the clatter and talking and dinner comes to him. It tastes, as always,
like ‘home’. He clears everything from his mind and, instead of him eating, he
becomes Eating Itself.
Sometimes
the people in this place give him treats. More often than his Woman does, but
not nearly as often as his Man does. He seems to remember his Woman chiding his
Man for so many treats. ‘Chiding’ is not a word he would ever know or
understand, but he feels the feeling when the Woman talks to the Man about
treats.
Too
soon, the food is gone. He dozes for a while, without dreams, until he has to
drag himself up and wander around the cage until he poops. The people in this
place always praise him when they pick up his poop. He’s not sure why, since
his poops are inside and therefore ‘bad’. But they do. And they take the poop
away to someplace he does not know.
No
new dogs have come today, probably, the Puli imagines with clarity beyond his
ken, that it is whatever Christmas is since ‘Merry Christmas’ has been the phrase
of the day. He is glad there have been no changes. Changes in routine are
things that ‘bother’ him, though he doesn’t know that word. He just knows what
the people call ‘changes’ make him feel anxious. Habit and ruts are where he
dwells most securely. Changes, like coming to this place, cause him distress.
Two
meals, a walk, a treat or two from the smiling girl—a good routine, a pleasing
rut—are over. The bright lights are off. He and the other dogs live now in an
indoor dusk. And they sleep.
The
Puli sleeps. And dreams.
Dreams.
Again
the running, the leaping on the big bed, the eating/eating/eating, the Woman
and Man with him on the big bed, those bodies close to his, the scent of them,
the warmth they have, racing up and down stairs, always full of energy, his
mind alert to the threats around them, walking and walking and walking, never
enough, and treats, sometimes his treats, sometimes food from the Woman’s
plate, or the Man’s.
Dreams
like that fill up the rest of Christmas day and night. There is even a dream of
a place that is nowhere and other dogs like him that he is with before a long
journey in what the people call a ‘car’ to the place he’s always known as
‘home’. That dream is vague and distant and the Puli doesn’t quite know what to
make of it, of the taste of milk, of the closeness of other creatures like him,
of a place that he doesn’t really remember since his home has always, always
been with the Man and Woman and the creatures who aren’t there anymore. But
something in that short, vague, distant dream rouses him for a moment and he
doesn’t know where he is. This isn’t there—the dream place—or ‘home’ or the big
bed….In a while he remembers, he’s in this place and this is where he’s been
and the dream he had of a place he doesn’t remember being fades away.
He
dreams some more. He dreams of the outside thing the Woman brought inside
before he came to this place. He thinks the people called it a ‘Christmas
tree’—there’s that word, Christmas, again. He dreams of the lights and little
things they put on the tree. A tree inside his home. That makes no sense. But
he somehow remembers other times when it happened. Most times, he remembers,
the Woman brought two trees, but not this time. This time before they brought
him to this place.
He
slept for hours without dreams. He just slept. He ‘was’ sleeping just as he
‘is’ eating and ‘is’ drinking water. And in his sleep he didn’t need to go up
or down stairs, or get on the bed, or ‘do’ anything at all. He simply WAS
sleep.
But
just before he woke on the day after Christmas—though he had been roused a time
or two during the night, sleep not being as certain as it used to be—he had a
dream even he would call ‘odd’ if he knew that word or what it meant.
He
dreamed he was in a place he’d never been before. It was a place so beautiful
he almost forgot the place he’s always know—‘home’—and almost forgot the Man
and Woman he shared that place with, first with other creatures and then, for a
long time, with only the Man and Woman. In the dream the place he dreamed was enormous.
And he ran and ran and ran and ran, like he’d never run before.
And
there was food that tasted like ‘home’ only better. And he wasn’t eating it,
Eating was him. And water in a bowl, in a creek, in a lake, so cool and pure
that he wasn’t drinking it, Drinking was him. And he ran, through snow and rain
(which he used to hate but didn’t in his dream) and grass and weeds and trees
and he ran and ran and ran and didn’t ever stop running. And it was a perfect
Christmas Dream, though he still didn’t know what Christmas was.
Morning
came eventually. He dozed without dreams. The loving girl came to feed him what
tasted like ‘home’. The other girl took him out and he actually ‘pooped’ or
‘kai-kai-ed’ depending on which of his humans you believed. Then he slept for a
while, without dreams, until the girl he liked most came and started putting
things he thought of as his into a big bag with dogs—not him—on it.
“Your
daddy’s here, Bela,” she said, “you’re going home”.
It
took him a moment to realize ‘daddy’ meant his Man.
But
immediately, he understood ‘home’.
HOME—that
he knew, that he longed for, that he loved.
Always
and for whatever ‘forever’ means.
