Torn Apart by Dogs

And we watched, as the dogs tore them apart. From people to shreds, right before our eyes. There were a few gasps and certainly some people who couldn’t bear to look – though they didn’t seem to realize they were free to leave the scene. Nobody was happy with what lay in front of us: a bloody scene to be sure. And nobody was particularly happy to continue on their life as a witness.

Hell, even the dogs would have preferred to take no part in it. Trust me.

As the sound of ambulances shook us all from our state of shock, we scattered like rats – or something much lower than rats, something that didn’t deserve to live.

We went about our days. First, to brush our teeth before going to bed – it was the night after all. Then, we arose – still with the gruesome images burnt into our brains. Our wives and husbands and sons and daughters wouldn’t understand what we had seen. There was no point in sharing. We ate our cereal in silence – with milk as usual. And we drank our orange juice, with a taste of bitterness that wasn’t there before. Then we went off to be bankers and grocers and florists and bus drivers and school teachers and we took comfort in our roles. We told ourselves that, without us, society would fall apart. We were brave. After what we had seen, we didn’t give up our posts. We didn’t let anyone down. Nobody took a sick day though we were all sick to our stomachs.

And none of our co-workers would understand, so we just focused on each task at hand. We created lists in our minds where we could cross off goals and feel accomplished, like there was an end. Just three more jobs left to check off. We tried not to be surly, those of us who had jobs involving interaction with people. The people who worked “behind the scenes” to keep everything running were free to be their usual anti-social selves. Their co-workers expected a lack of chatter. But the school teachers and wait staff really had to grit their teeth and bear it. They had to put on fake smiles the likes of which they’d never worn before. The children and the people who would hopefully leave big tips needn’t be worried about the previous night.

And so the day ended and we headed home to silent dinners. There were a few more nervous glances and a bit more uncertainly amongst our husbands and wives and daughters and sons. Nobody said anything to daddy. Nobody said anything to mommy. Thank God there were no children to witness the horror.

Another weekend hit us. None of us felt like going out. We all wanted to throw up. Yet keeping up appearances is important. We wouldn’t want the neighbors to talk. Our wives went off to spend time nurturing their friendships while we went to the bar to sulk in our own masculine silence. Our husbands went off to have a “boys’ night out” while we tried to drown ourselves out by the lake only to have some spoil-sport-late-night-jogger call the police. We lucked out and managed to get our blue faces away before the authorities arrived and questions would have been asked.

We all wished we could change that night. We all wished we had kicked a dog. We all wanted to kick a dog. But that wasn’t the issue at hand. The dogs, just like us, were playing their roles. Them, as perpetrators only following orders; us, as complacent figures. We may as well have been trees growing in those back alleys.

Some of us began making incisions where we hoped our husband or wife wouldn’t look – or at least not ask any questions. Some of us followed through with our misguided intent to take out our disappointment in ourselves on animals. We kicked dogs; we kicked cats; hell, we tried to kick some squirrels, but they were all far too fast. Most of the cats were too. We misplaced our disgust with ourselves wherever we could. You better believe our wives and husbands and sons and daughters felt it. Not that any of them were brave enough to ask the origin of the abuse, those who weren’t lucky enough to find their fathers and mothers and husbands and wives with tear drenched faces and rope burn on their neck next to a kicked over stool in the attic, those who got cigarette burns on the backs of their necks instead of the responsibility of driving mommy or daddy or their wife or their husband to the emergency room with blood gushing from their wrists.

In the hospital beds, some of us heard the howls. It was happening again. How many thousand people heard the same howls? That’s what the nurse asked me when I buzzed him for assistance. When I explained what was happening. I told him he needed to do something. He told me the buzzer wasn’t a toy and that my ability to ask for assistance with it was a privilege, not a right. I asked if he could up the morphine. I was comfortable as I left this plane.

“Torn Apart by Dogs” originally appeared in the Escúcheme zine.