Bob and Weave

The Empty Bowl

78 The Empty Bowl A man’s dog was very old and crippled. Each morning she only sniffed her food, giving it a few licks. Then she would drag herself over to an empty red bowl that had belonged to a previous dog. She would lick the empty bowl and shove it along the boards of the porch with her nose. The man would pick her up, crooning softly, “You must eat, Old Lady,” and place her next to her own bowl of food. She would stand there and smack her lips a few times, then drag herself over to the empty bowl. The man tried different food, but that never worked. He tried putting the food in the red bowl, but she only reversed the process, sniffing the meaty morsels, then dragging herself resignedly to her own empty bowl. He tried removing one of the bowls, but then the old dog would haul herself around the porch, down the steps falling on her face at the bottom, then out into the yard and under every tree and bush looking for the empty bowl. So the man would put both bowls back on the porch to keep her happy. Every morning it was the same. The scruffy white hair of her muzzle, the raw floppy ears pestered by gnats and flies, that half-seeing gaze through cataracts. He couldn’t understand how she survived without food. She looked so bad it embarrassed him for the neighbors to see her. “Maybe I should put her to sleep. That would be the merciful thing to do.” All the way to the vet’s office she lay on the front seat beside him with her head in his lap. If he took his hand away from her head, she would stare at him until he put it back. In the car there were no gnats or flies to nag her ears. No space demanding she drag herself here or there. When he arrived and lifted her from the seat, she was limp in his arms, pink tongue dangling lazily from her mouth. ...