163 Life Above 5-Foot-Four

He didn't quite know she was dying, for that meant grasping one's place in the universe. Yet, he knew there was something wrong. He could smell it in that amazing chemistry lab known as a dog's nose. He could smell it through her abdomen, through her clothes, and even apart from the other smells that gave him the news of the neighborhood.

That cat! he thought, picking up the scent, wafting from the northwest, probably about 50 yard away or, as he appreciated it, a distance to the other house and back. (For that is how he gauged distance.)

She walked by and he smelled it again. Not as cancer, for that required an appreciation for pathology and mortality, neither of which his canine brain could fathom. But he knew it was a bad smell. A smell that attacked both of them. Her and him. He hated that smell.

It stank up the whole house and even her whole life. And it got worse everyday until she went away; somehow he knew she wasn't coming back. That stench had won. When he couldn't smell it anymore, he knew it had been buried in the ground, along with her.

Thus, a sense of dying entered him.

That evening there was a gathering of her friends and family. He wondered which of them would he be leaving with. That's what happens, isn't it?

He sensed how "gone" she was by her absence in her crowd--a bespoke entourage who had been engendered by her life over his lifetime. It was too noisy. People were talking loudly and even laughing. His ears were as sensitive as his nose, so he ran through the pet door into the backyard.

That is where he, for the first time in his life, looked up--higher than he had ever needed to--why look higher than her face?

Life over 5'4" had never shown itself before: he saw clouds. The moon. Stars. And he added another perspective--his place, insignificant as it was--in a picture bigger than what he had ever known.

And so, for one particular sentient moment, he was the wisest dog in the world. Until he saw the damn cat and started barking stupidly.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Tuesday, June 11, Day 163 of the Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title-accompaniment photo was AI-generated (Artificial Introspection), and no dogs or cats were hurt in the making of this post.

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• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

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