Monday, October 21, 2019

Beginning of an essay


When I was 17, I walked out into the heat furnace that is a Southern California summer to find my dog dead in the backyard. I knew something was wrong when I approached her doghouse and saw her lying on her side, not reacting at all to my presence. I opened the door of her enclosure and it hit her foot. She was stiff. There were flies.

I ran like I was being followed by every demon imaginable, all the departed ghosts in this hellmouth of a house. Later I would come up with a calculus: once I turned 34, twice the age I was at that pivotal moment, I would have somehow transcended the experience.

Today I am 45. It hasn’t happened.


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