Chilanga Sprinkles

The elder dog paces, his nails keeping time with the slow, careful movements of his aging body. He doesn’t move to chase birds, or to frolic with his life companion or with the younger dog who goads him. He moves simply because he can, when he is free enough from pain. He moves simply to feel that his legs and paws can hold him upright and propel him forward. He moves until his legs tire. Once he stops, his unsteady legs collapse under him. He lands sprawled on the floor and lays in this most unnatural of natural ways, his body flush with the floor and both sets of legs doing the splits. Defeated. He lays for hours, waiting for the desire to to stand to overwhelm him or until the fullness of his bladder signals urgency. He has not reached the point when he won’t care where he empties it. He barks. At first a demanding, entitled bark. If this moment comes in the darkness and silence of night, the bark turns desperate and pleading. My sleeping mind absorbs the sounds, incorporates them into torturous dreams, rejecting the reality of the barking dog. The man laying beside me cannot drown out the dog’s desperation and dependency. He grudgingly, yet generously, moves his exhausted body through the dark and lifts the dog to a standing position. If the dog is unable to get his bearings, this tired man will carry him to the backyard and back inside once his bladder is empty.