My beefy neighbour Axl who I both avoid like the plague and watch obsessively through my dining room curtains has a new ditzy blond waltzing up the front steps with him into his dingy puce-green linoleum foyer. That’s where the spectacle ends. It stops for Bruno too, the massive Cane Corso who is once again left behind in the cargo bed of his jacked-up 4×4 black-scratch pickup truck, the one with monster off-road tires that only gets driven around town and makes that god-awful racket.
He is to wait. A paragon of patience. And forgiveness. And loyalty. Loyalty undeserved. OH! how I feel for that dog. The brute left standing on all fours, rooted to the corrugated metal bed steaming in the hot hot Louisiana sun, his paws near blistering; no water, no food, no indication of when the lout will return, will even remember what he left behind. The dog, although not tethered to the flatbed, never jumps ship. He just waits. In stay position. For that bastard to return. I have been on the verge of calling animal rescue many times. But self-preservation stops me cold. He would know it was me.
The sun beats down hard. Long slobbery strands of coagulated saliva hang like stalactites, formed over centuries, centuries of waiting; the dog never moving. Scumble-edged clouds painted Naples yellow do not offer sufficient shade. It is sweltering out there. I fumble in the kitchen filling a wide plastic tub with cold water and ice cubes, refreshment that I fail to deliver, and go back to watching for movement from behind thick brocade curtains in my darkened empty dining room, kept dusty and ghosty like a tomb, never any dinner guests allowed not even a ditzy blond. The dog and I have a lot in common. The cruel irony; me not leaving my house, me frozen in place. Not given permission to leave. Never knowing when it will come. If it will come. — I’m rooting for Bruno. One of us should be free.
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Karen Schauber’s flash fiction appears in ninety-nine international literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, with a Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, four Best Microfiction nominations, and a spot on the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist. She is editor of the award-winning flash fiction anthology The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings (Heritage House, 2019). Schauber curates Vancouver Flash Fiction, an online resource hub, and Miramichi Flash, a monthly literary column. In her spare time she is a seasoned family therapist. Her website is available here: https://KarenSchauberCreative.weebly.com
© 2023, by Karen Schauber
Halfway Down the Stairs 