Dog Time

Justin Bryant

photo credit: Justin Bryant

The dogs sleep next to me in bed. It’s nearly noon. They’ve spent most of these lockdown days in the yard, the girl especially, a sunflower content to bask and soak. The boy is big and strong and seems to carry that as a burden. He’s more nervous, more protective, forever scanning the lake and woods beyond for potential threats. The most intolerable of these is a great blue heron who stalks the shallows and provokes a volley of barks, even a charge into chest-deep water. The bird doesn’t care. On still days, its reflection is mirrored so perfectly that you expect one of them to rise and fly while the other remains.

But today it rains, so the dogs sleep. Often, their deep breathing syncs up, chests rising and falling in synchronization, interrupted by dreams of running or eating. I hear the TV from the other room. The rain means no projects today. The old cars can wait. The long grass can wait. We were raised to believe that we must have something tangible to show for our time, something to which we could point. Look, I say: I fixed my old Toyota. The truth is there is no more value in replacing an alternator than there is in lying in bed with your dogs on a day irrigated with rain. The dogs feel safe.

Now it’s noon. Today’s work is done.

Justin Bryant is fifty-three years old and lives in Raleigh, NC with his partner Sarah and their dogs Roxy and Bryce. Bryant coaches soccer, writes, and fiddles with old cars. He is the author of the memoir ‘Small Time’ (Bennion Kearny, 2013, UK) and his fiction has been published in Volume One Brooklyn, Modern Literature, Thin Air, and elsewhere.