Eights

“Sasha, come on girl!”
She calls out to her white guardian dog. On the dot, Sasha rushes to her. “Sasha is a tireless one. All day, she can run eights around the coffee table. She chases anything that dares to move. So you be careful.”, she gave me a friendly warning once in the elevator. Sasha seems to enjoy the company of her caretaker. Almost every evening the two of them are having dreamy conversations. The madame is a talker and Sasha is a listener. I’d like to imagine this as an evolving friendship. Occasionally, Sasha drifts to her own. Her keeper’s whistles bring her back on board. Together, they romanticize a walk around the apartment on an uneventful evening. Even when her keeper leaves for chores in the morning, goodbyes are never spoken or barked. They just look sharply in each other’s eyes. Sasha has to wag her tail all the time of course but they are simply at peace. Their evening together is their slice of time to savour. They wouldn’t trade it for the three wishes of a genie. After a game of hide-and-peek, the twosome head home.
‘Simba, come on boy.’, I call out.
A golden tail-wagger of six months, my little partner in crime, scampers along. He loves running eights around my ankles.
