dog

He knows. I don’t understand how he knows, but he knows. His head snaps to attention, like the antelope that knows its predator is near, though from my position, reclining on the couch, it seems nothing has changed. His floppy ears and perm cut offer a pathetic frame for his snout, faded in comparison to the soft black of his natural coat. Uselessly nimble, he pounces on to his four matchstick supports, begins a series of staccato yelps, and takes off for the door. He lifts himself onto his two hind legs, and slides his paws, with their blunt nails, down the indentations he has made on the soft wood from years of anticipation. Before long, I hear a car pull into the driveway; with this occurance begins his climax, hopping helplessly up and down, up and down, continuing his pitiful vocal composition all the while. The doorknob turns; my mother walks in, and he is on her, still jumping, barely making it to her hips. She, dutifully, wishes him a good afternoon, and reminds him of his idiocy. He doesn’t care. Her return revives him back to a life in which every moment of ours is infused with many times more of his.