The Leash
There was no dog.
There was just a leash trailing on the sidewalk.
The old man watched as the girl serenely dragged the air inside the collar down the block, across from the park bench where he sat. He smiled to himself. He remembered back when he had been the girl’s age. His mother had also made him walk a leash everyday after he’d asked for a puppy. Show you’re responsible, she’d said. The girl was smiling to herself as she rounded the corner and disappeared from his sight.
The next day, there was still no dog.
The old man was sitting on the bench again as she passed by. Again he saw the serene smile on her face. A FedEx van sped by, momentarily obscuring her. She didn’t pause, but for a moment… For a moment the man thought he could see a dark, pained expression in her eyes.
She turned the corner.
Weeks later, there was still no dog.
The old man had seen the girl many times, her hand looped through the leash, the collar bumping along on the concrete. And many times, he’d seen the pain in her eyes. So today, he’d waited by the light pole on the corner, unable to conquer his curiosity.
As usual, the girl came down the block with the red leash in hand. As she passed him by, the man unstuck the words from his throat.
“When will you get a dog to put in that leash?” He said it with a smile, but she turned to him with her eyes dark.
“I have a dog,” she said, hesitating for a moment as if she needed to convince herself.
She turned, her gait stiff and her fingers clenched around the leash.
Months before, there had been a dog.
The dog who’d lain down at her feet on the bed. The dog who’d wagged his tail every morning as a ‘hello’ and every afternoon as an ‘I missed you’ when she came back from school. The dog that fit into the red leash, that walked at her side around the block every day. The dog that had loved her every day, no matter what, just as much as she’d loved it.
Love hurts.
There had been a dog.
But one day, it was gone, under the belly of a passing eighteen wheeler.
Love is blind—and makes you blind.
