The Kirkmay Road Triangle

Every house has a story.

The story of 15 Kirkmay Road begins with a tall fence. Behind that fence, infrequently, a small dog. You can smell that this is a place with a small dog, at least if you are a dog as well. For months, maybe a year, it was just a fence. A fence among many fences, and because it was tall, we liked it a lot. Tall fences protect us from whatever is behind it. We used it for protection, my dog and I. One side I don’t have to worry about. Even when the tiny dog appeared, which happened infrequently, the reaction was subtle, managable, nothing to write home about. It was such a good fence, solid and made out of planks.

Now it is gone. The fence itself is still there, but it has turned into evil. Solid, wooden evil, with a smell of evil. I don’t know when exactly it happened. At some point in spring we found out that the fence has become upsetting. This does not depend on the presence of a tiny dog in the house. We have never seen that dog anyway. We only heard it barking a few times. But it does not matter at this point. The fence is the enemy. My dog is freaking out when we are within twenty metres of the fence. It does not matter what I am doing. I can hold a piece of Frankfurter sausage in my hand, which does not happen very often. I can show the sausage to him, while we are approaching the fence, on the other side of the road. It does not matter. He jumps, barks, and jumps again. He is gone as well.

The neighbours in 17 Kirkmay Road have a dog as well. A big one, yellow. We have known each other for a while. He likes to hang out behind the window to watch the road, but he always kept quiet. Better times. When my dog gets upset, their dog gets upset as well. Whenever my dog barks at the fence, their dog has to bark as well. Now he barks at us no matter what, I guess just a bad vibe. Number 18 also has a dog, who makes noises as well. Number 26, too. A little yappie. The entire neighbourhood has turned into a toxic wasteland, enemies at every gate.

Anger works like a blackjack game. You get angry a little bit, but it’s fine. Hit me. Then something else happens, more anger. Still okay. Hit me again. The next trigger is still okay, still under control, still in the game. Hit me. And then it takes you over the limit, and it’s game over. You lost. The anger is spilling over and can’t be controlled anymore. You have to get out, take a deep breath, assess your situation, and start a new game. If you get a new trigger before you manage to do that, the anger will just keep going. If you get another one, it goes on forever. The triggers are stacking up. In Kirkmay Road, the madness never ends.

We need to talk about the cat. I don’t know where the cat lives, maybe in 27 Kirkmay Road, just diagonally across from number 17. The cat is just hanging around, like cats do, somewhere between number 18 and 30. On the road, on a wall, underneath a car, in a hedgerow. Sometimes it seems to be gone, but it is always there. We can sense it. At least one of us. It is a strange one, a cat that does not run away. It comes towards us, places itself right in front of us, hisses, and arches its back. It’s big, too, a red, scary monster. The last straw. It is blocking our escape route. Attracted by the dog mayhem, it puts itself right where we need to go to get away from it all. Either on the road, or in the alley, or on the sidewalk. We turn around and face the hellhole again.

The village has hundreds of houses. Every house has a story.