The other day, as I am helping my mother take down her Christmas decorations outside, I hear a distant angry voice–across the creek and up a long hill, the neighborhood that runs parallel behind. It’s far enough away to make out very little of the houses but the sloping hill carries sound well enough.
A man and his dog. The man in his best mighty voice is reprimanding the dog. “Come here! Get up here!”
…
“Now! What are you doing? GET UP HERE.” RARRARAR I AM MASTER FETCH ME MY HUGE DICK FURBOT (you know, that kind of tone).
Then I hear it followed by a !*SMACK!*! and I can tell the dog has been hurt.
I run to the edge of the yard, so upset I want to yell back at the man or go take the dog or both or take a branch to a certain someone. (I hate the feel of violence in my hands, my impulsivity towards eye-for-an-eye.)
I did nothing. Instead, I thought about what I’d like to do. What I’d do next time.
Dumbass and his dog. Dumbass, getting his meager masculinity-gasm for the day. Dumbass-would-never-own-a-cat, something-sometimes-synonomous-with-“pussy” and, really, what could be lower? Dumbass hurt because dog won’t lick his balls for volunteering himself as dictator over everything the animal will ever come to know or love.
Coercion lauded as “loyalty.”
Bruises like “because I love you.”
My heart goes out tonight to the dog who is only across the creek and up a hill. A house, though faint, with its lights still on, where lives man and his dog. I can see because of the sliding glass door I am looking through. And the bell jar.
Buried Alive 