poes balloon

Here is a true thing: the relaxed human hand naturally forms the perfect shape to pet a dog. Here is another true thing: a dog, seeing that hand, will attempt to introduce some part of its body into the hand.

And there it is. If you ever needed absolute and undisputed proof that humans and dogs were destined to share lives, now you have it. Case closed, end of story, full stop and dammit this is my fifth attempt to write this Front Page and I just can’t get it right.

See, here’s what happened. A few days ago Juliana Beasley’s dog died. His name was Moishe and they’d been together a long time. And just a couple days ago Adrian Gibbs’ dog Seven, who he’d adopted as an abused puppy, died. Both Juliana and Adrian are gutted, and understandably so. Anybody who loves animals, who’s shared a living space with a dog or a cat or–I don’t know, a fucking chipmunk knows what it’s like when that animal dies. Your hand does form the ideal shape for petting a dog, but what good is that when the dog is no longer there? Then your traitor hand only serves to remind you of what you’ve lost. When you sit on the sofa you’re aware of the Moishe-shaped absence beside you. When you walk by a body of water, there’s no Seven to splash loopily about. How do you adjust to that?

So here is Melissa’s Poe (or Poesy or Popo) with a red balloon and lawdy what a cute dog and I just want to tell Melissa to pick her up and hug her. We are incredibly lucky to get to live in a world with a Moishe, a Seven, a Poe. We are incredibly lucky to be able to see little black dogs wearing red balloons and dammit, I’m never going to get this Front Page right.

But it’s going to have to do. I’m not putting myself through this a sixth time. So maybe this will be okay.

-- greg fallis

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