FOG
Chassis Albuquerque
First Published 2016
All rights reserved.
Copyright © Chassis Albuquerque
The right of Chassis Albuquerque to be identified as author of this work has been asserted. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or sexually transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or
otherwise without the prior permission of the author's mother.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication should make a note of it and may
be liable to a very, very severe admonishing; if you’re in the 3rd world, definitely some form of
supervised corporal punishment, at the very least, wherever you are, a fine of sorts.
ABOUT
FOG, A SHORT STORY ABOUT A DOG involves very few weather phenomena and is in fact a short story about,
obviously, a dog.
And loss.
And vets - not army vets, you know, people who have fought other people, this is about people who work with animals.
Of course, thinking about it, people can be animals, too, and unless the dinosaur agrees to stage a return and take up arms,
we, the most mistrustful of all the populace of earth, we are also our most heavily armed predator.
Ps. Also, when I said “loss” please don’t believe the animal mentioned has vanished only to suffer
some horrific fate we’ll never know, the dog’s already dead - I just wanted to be clear about that.
www.chassisalbuquerque.com
Fog.
Crystal Munday, who’d already had her share of death and funerals to deal with when first her grandmother had died and then her father, had reminded him about her theory of atoms – THEORY: People when they die become atoms, each atom forming a whole of the original person, therefore you are never truly alone surrounded by their millions of atoms. So we take some comfort from science.
The old man had been steadily deteriorating, the death had not been a surprise.
The dog died shortly after; his death, too, not unexpected. Crystal had given the dog all the time in the world. On the outskirts of the city she’d walk him in the forest – “His favourite place!” she’d tell Radar-Sophisticate fondly but as he’d deteriorated it became necessary to drive him there, otherwise he’d be exhausted, unable to get back. Crystal bought a van and had Radar-Sophisticate build a ramp to lead up the tailgate of the van to help the dog get in and out without exhausting itself because he was just too big to pick up and manhandle.
Clearly Crystal’s dedication for the animal’s well being was extraordinary. But when they’d woken one early morning Radar Sophisticate knew something was wrong, he’d a bad feeling. It got worse and he hears Crystal outside calling the dog.
"Fog! Fog! Fog?" she calls. "Fog, boy, where are you!"
Some days when thick fog rolled in slowly off the ocean and covered the city in its thick great blankets and reams of fog, a skyline of the tips of the tallest buildings poking above through it, Fog would refuse to come indoors, the dog seemed to enjoy the fog’s coolness. Crystal would wonder into the yard calling for him: "Fog? Fog? Fog!" Radar imagined neighbours thinking: There she goes, calling out the obvious weather - what's next, rain? Thunder? Hail? Lightning?
When Radar glances outside now the day is clear, no clouds, no heavy fog and no Fog the big dog, the world’s all the good colours of blue and yellow and green.
"Fog! Fog!" Crystal called. Then she screamed. “Fog!”
The porch door was open, Crystal was outside kneeling at the dog’s side - he’d collapsed on his side, breathing heavily, staring forlornly at his mistress. The poor big dog couldn’t even stand any more, his legs had given out or maybe his great weight was just too much at his age, he’d just given up. Radar had had to struggle to get him from the garden where Crystal had found him to the porch.
Fog was at least thirteen years old then, old for a cross between a bear and Newfoundland dog. Newfoundland dogs are particularly big animals and, apart from being so massive, if anyone did a handstand in the general vicinity he’d move protectively in between them his owner and regard the handstandee suspiciously. For some reason the upside down sight of them threw him into confusion and the handstandee had only a few seconds before Fog would move his great bulk in on them, swatting them off their the right way up to the ground. And then, if Crystal didn’t get to them in time, the dog would go for their neck.
He’d never actually bitten anyone, he’d just hold them down, his great jaws about their neck, his big paws upon them, his eyes on Crystal awaiting further instruction. And always the handstandee would instinctively lie still, prone, a curious, immediate symbiosis between the great dog and victim; they’d consulted a dog behaviourist who’d discovered a lineage of circus dogs in its history but it had seemed unrelated.
Anyhow, Radar-Sophisticate called their regular vet. For quite some time he’d harboured doubts about this particular vet’s veterinary skills. For instance the vet had said he was “… in the area anyway” which struck Radar as odd, as if the vet had had nothing better to do on this particular day and regularly traveled about the city prepared, constantly on the vigil for animals to put down - was he a serial euthanasiast, like a rapist with a rape kit looking for rape victims? But Crystal, made vulnerable by all the death about them and the deteriorating dog’s health, maintained the dog had always been treated there and it’s history was well documented – to move to a new vet might have jeopardised his health further. Radar-Sophisticate hadn’t pursued it. Even more so than the grievous amount of recent funerals, Radar-Sophisticate recalled it was odd the idiot vet arrived in a Jeep 4X4, complete with camouflage and fold down front windscreen (the vet wasn’t in camouflage, the Jeep was). Maybe the vet thought there was a war on, maybe he was a man who felt the need for concealment driving about the big city?
But what bothered Radar even more was the vet’s little eight year old son was in the front seat, like making a house call to put down an old dog was just a regular part of growing up. Perhaps Crystal was too distracted to say much – she was barely speaking.
“Hello,” the boy said to them.
“Hi,” Radar-Sophisticate said.
“Stay here,” the man told his boy, strapping him in with the seatbelt. Oh, the irony! Radar-Sophisticate thought, watching. So the idiot vet would drive about in his jeep with his son, neither of them buckled up, but pulling up in the driveway of the house now he wanted to buckle his son up? What kind of a vet was this! What greater danger was here than driving about out there without a seatbelt?
Very athletic with her grief, the vet gave Fog the once-over while Crystal threw herself into a handstand and, oblivious, her top drops down past her elbows as she leans down toward the dog's nose, her elbows at right angles under her weight as she balances, her bare back to them. Crystal’s lips are so close she touches Fog’s wet, black nose with a kiss! Fog only watches and Crystal can only wish for his big mouth to chomp down on her neck! Involuntary eye movements occurred, the vet staring at the fine sight of Crystal upside down, the way her spine arched and the small swell of her fine tits poking out from her sides. Composing himself and without any great feeling he told them the dog would have to be put down.
“We can just do it here,” is how he actually said it. Perhaps having euthanized so many animals had made him insensitive.
“Here?” Crystal cried, bewildered, righting herself; she wiped her eyes with her wrist and stared at Radar-Sophisticate who’d thought she was going to put her hands over the dog’s ears so Fog wouldn’t hear how they were talking about his death.
“I’ll go get the
stuff out the Jeep,” the vet said.
The big old dog just kept staring dumbly at Crystal, he didn’t blink and Radar swore he saw death approaching in those clear, unspeaking eyes.
The vet didn’t explain the process of animal euthanasia, that vets used sodium pentobarbital, for instance - sodium pentobarbital induces a rapid loss of consciousness followed by respiratory arrest by means of intravenous injection. He didn’t brief them that the animal experiences no pain and is effectively “sleeping” before the arrest sets in, stopping the animals heart. The injection has some side effects, such as muscle twitching, or sometimes, because of poor circulation, the drugs can take longer to take effect and both thereby creating the illusion that the poor animal is fighting to stay alive, traumatising the owner into thinking they’ve made a mistake having them put down. It can be disturbingly distressing misunderstanding the effect of the lethal concoction, which he neglected to explain, too.
When he returned with the “stuff” the vet had quickly prepared the injection - he’d might as well brought a gun from the Jeep and shot the dog because - unbeknownst to Crystal and Radar-Sophisticate - the vet had already given Fog the goddamn injection.
“Right, best say your goodbyes, folks,” he said. Radar-Sophisticate could see the confused, bewildered look on Crystal’s face, the trauma of losing the big dog