The Dog Collar

Why was 7:00pm on a Sunday evening always the worst?

Evan sighed, pulling on his worn out sneakers. There was dirt under the mesh that he didn’t know how to get out, and the bottom sole was beginning to peel off. These were the only sneakers he had that didn’t cause his knees to ache after walking, and with the never-ending rising cost of groceries, he wasn’t able to dish out the cash for a new pair of walking shoes.

Click, click, click…

The sound of little paws clicked against the laminate floor. The shadow of a tail wagging flickered in his peripheral vision.

“Alright, Darla, yes, yes, we’re going. Yes, you’re coming! I promised I’d take you after I picked up groceries,” he said to her as she hopped around, clacking louder against the laminate.

Darla’s tail was wagging so ferociously that it made whacking noises against the drywall, while Evan struggled to attach her leash to her brand new, pink collar through all her wiggling.

Darla was a mutt who resembled a sort of schnauzer. She looked like a male, truth to be told, with her schnauzer style mustache. People were always mistaking her for one. Which is why he had gone and purchased a new, pink collar for her. She was an aging dog, yet you’d never know it when they set out on their evening walk.

Once out, a sharp slice of wind cut through his scarf, stinging his cheeks. The clouds had set in, and it was a rather gloomy March evening. He was in a rather gloomy mood to match. His thoughts shifted to tomorrow. Monday. Why did it always seem to be Monday?

His budget report would be due tomorrow, and he would be expected to present it to his supervisor, explaining the changes he had made since last year’s report. He hated meetings. He hated presentations. He hated computer screens, and the dull hum of the water cooler in the corner of the office. He hated the white walls, and the office gossip. He was exhausted each day even after a good night’s sleep.

He gazed at the line of evergreen trees lined up on the other side of the street, thinking of escaping into them. Darla had the same thought, as she pulled the leash towards the line of trees. Evan gave in, looking both ways before dashing with her across the street. Darla sniffed enthusiastically at the base of a tree, pawing at the dirt beneath it.

“What if I were to just disappear into these trees?” he thought, “Never have to give a presentation or fake small talk again..”

But of course he couldn’t. It was ridiculous, as was how often this thought struck his mind. He couldn’t be homeless in Canada. He would freeze.. Darla would freeze.

Darla was clearly not sharing his morose thoughts, her tail thumping against a tree trunk while she continued to paw dirt, apparently searching for something buried beneath. He needed a job to keep a roof over his and Darla’s heads. Darla was all he had. But he had always admired people who were brave enough to change their situation if they weren’t happy with it. In his eyes, gone were the days of men bragging about how many years they’d been with a company, despite their misery. The problem was, his weekly online job search had proved to be fruitless, and money was tight.

He led Darla back home, the tips of his nose cherry red, and his cheeks freezing. Once home, Darla ran straight for her water dish, happily lapping away. When she was finished, he detached her leash, and collar. Next moment, Darla was dashing to the window, barking her tiny head off. He stuffed her thin, pink collar into his jacket pocket, and went to see what had caught her attention.

Sleet began to hit against the windows, while a little old lady hobbled down the street, her head wrapped in a scarf, her arms tucked tight around her middle. Darla barked ferociously, howling at the audacity of the old woman using the sidewalk.

“Really nice, Darla, barking at old ladies.. Come, let’s have dinner.”

That night, Evan laid in bed, stroking Darla’s soft curly head beside him. A solid pit sat in his stomach while he laid there, tossing and turning. Nagging anxiety was keeping him from getting comfortable. He thought about the next day, wishing he could go anywhere else at all, but to work.

*

Next morning, Evan arrived at the office. The weather was still sharp and nasty, and he quickly ran from his car into the building. He worked for a public school district, managing the budget for the materials and supplies that each school in the district needed. His desk cubicle was on the first floor, which was kept pretty well bare besides a small framed picture of Darla and a jack-o-lantern sticker taped to the side of his monitor, though it was March. He pressed on his monitor. He set down his tea mug, when his phone began to ring.

Jason.

Evan’s stomach sank. Jason was Evan’s supervisor. The budget report meeting wasn’t supposed to be until 11:00am. It was only 8:30..

“Hey, Jason,” Evan answered loudly, feigning confidence.

“Evan.. hope you had a great weekend. Hey, could you pop up to my office in say, twenty minutes? I know I had you penciled in to deliver that report at 11:00, but I have to pick up my daughter, guess she’s got a fever. Would that be alright?”

“Sure, no problem,” Evan responded, and hung up.

“Well, I guess sooner is better than later.. get it over with..” Evan thought to himself. Twenty minutes later, he found himself in the elevator, heading to Jason’s office.

Evan pressed the elevator button that would take him up. A soft ding sounded and before he knew it, he was at Jason’s office. The door was closed. Evan could hear muffled voices on the other side of the door. Hands clammy, he felt for his watch.

“Oh, shoot!” Evan muttered to himself. In the cold of the morning, he forgot to take off his jacket. He would look stupid with his puffer jacket still on. Struggling to take it off as quickly as possible, he looked around for a plant or something to toss his coat in, and he tapped on the door.

“Just a minute!” he heard Jason’s gruff voice call from the other side of the door.

Evan, still struggling to get the sleeve of his jacket off around his watch, heard a jingling in his pocket. Feeling inside, he realized he still had Darla’s collar in his pocket. He had forgotten to put it back on her this morning. He pulled the skinny, pink collar out from the pocket, the metal tag on it jingling.

Feeling a trembling underneath his feet, Evan was thrown upside down, his head quickly becoming hot with blood. His feet were on the carpet, but the carpet had now become the roof. There was shaking coming from his feet, and he felt like he was about to be sick.

“An earthquake?” he thought, panicking, as his mind shifted quickly to Darla, who would be all alone at home.

Gripping the collar harder, everything went black, and Evan felt himself falling, falling.. And landing flat on his back.

“Ouch!” he cried, slowly sitting up, and rubbing the back of his head.

The ground had stopped shaking, his ears filled with an odd grinding noise… It sounded an awful lot like grinding coffee beans.

He slowly opened his eyes, an odd scene stood before him. Sage green walls were made warm with the reflection of soft sunlight flicking through large windows behind him. The walls were lined with shelves filled with bags of coffee, shiny mugs, and odd knick knacks.

“Let me guess.. Awkward elevator confrontation with a coworker? Or maybe it was a dentist appointment you’ve been dreading?” said a woman’s voice, over to his left.

Evan snapped his head around, and realized where the grinding noise had come from. A woman stood behind a wooden counter, emptying what looked like a simple electric bean grinder into a drip coffee maker.

The woman had dark hair framed with curtain bangs. She wore oversized square glasses and had a rather large nose.

Evan gaped at her. Looking around, he realized he must be in a sort of coffee shop. An empty coffee shop. Unique pieces of art were lined up beside each little table nook. Abstract faces were scattered on violently bright canvas backgrounds.

“Well, “ said the woman, “Come sit. I’m brewing some coffee now. Don’t tell me you take sugar in yours..”

Evan got to his feet, feeling dizzy.

“Um, no..” he said slowly. “I usually just stick to tea. A dash of milk is fine…where am I?”

The sound of dripping coffee into the pot filled the room. The dull voices of a radio came from the corner of the room. It was warm in there, what with the sunlight streaming in through large windows filling the wall opposite of the shelves. The smell of fresh coffee brewing filled his nose.

“Clock Coffee,” she responded, setting two mugs face up on the counter. You’re the third one I’ve had this week. People are getting desperate..”

“You mean to say, I’m your third customer this week? Hey, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any money on me. One minute I was at work, at my supervisor’s office.. And next minute…Well, the next minute, the floor began to shake! And somehow I’m here? Where is here?”

The girl ignored him as she poured the black liquid into the two white mugs, splashing a little over the side of the mug on her left.

“Ugh,” she muttered, wiping up the spill with her sleeve. “I never was a good barista. Not sure how I got landed with the task of running this place..” She trailed off to the back, coming back with a gallon of milk, splashing it into the mugs.

“So what was it then?” she continued, while he sat opposite her at the counter, accepting the mug.

“Dentist? Elevator run-in? A dreaded meeting?” she jabbered on. “People really need to stop making their own lives so miserable.”

“Me? Well, I was headed up to my supervisor’s office this morning, to give my budget report, when as I already told you, the ground began to shake-”

“And let me guess,” she said, cutting him off, “You’ve been dreading this meeting.”

“Well, yeah,” he replied, taking a sip of the coffee. The taste of the fresh beans filled his mouth. The milk blended perfectly with the strong brew. It was delicious… it was the best coffee he had ever tasted.. Why did he prefer tea again?

“But how did you know?” He said. “Where am I? I need to be back by noon to let my dog, Darla out, or she will absolutely pee on the sofa, no matter how many times I’ve tried to-”

“Don’t worry about your dog. You’re at Clock Coffee. I take appointments, first come, first served. We only get the most desperate of people. People who need a way out, but can’t seem to work out how on their own,” she said as casually as if she had been talking about the weather. She took another sip from her own mug, and picked a piece of hair off her sleeve.

Evan was at a loss.

“So… I was transported? Am I dreaming?”

“Not dreaming. Dog collar?” she asked, eyeing his jacket pocket.

“Yeah,” he replied, taking it out, and laying it on the counter.

“So, tell me what’s been going on. Pretend I’m your therapist. What’s keeping you up at night?” she asked.

Evan thought for a minute. Everything kept him up at night.

Apparently sensing his unease, she prodded, “You have parents? Family?”

“Oh, uh, no. Dad died when I was sixteen, and mom.. Well she went off grid once I graduated. Wanted to be free, not having to provide for me anymore, I guess. She lives in a motor home. It’s just Darla and I.”

“Okay. So, how did you get where you are now?”

“Well.. I guess I - I graduated from business school. I didn’t know where I wanted to work. I took a job straight out of college that I thought wouldn’t be the worst. At a school district headquarters. I was keen to start working and pay off my student loans. Be on my own. I guess I just faked it too hard. Convinced them that I was extroverted and keen to take the job. Now, well, I can’t seem to get out.”

“Mmm,” she said, pursing her lips, and setting her mug down, fingering the handle with her thumb.

“And what is it that you want to do?”

“Me? Well, uh…I don’t know. I want to be happy.. I want things to be simple.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Right, well.. I’m tired of being exhausted. Tired of small talk. Tired of being burnt out, really. I want to feel the sun on my face. I want to be outside… be with Darla. Be anywhere besides stuck under rows of fluorescent lights, staring at a computer screen like a zombie. I’m tired of feeling hollow. Tired of feeling like I am wasting my days away with no purpose. I am tired of being too tired to do anything after work, tired of not living..”

He felt embarrassed. What was he doing saying all of this to a complete stranger?

“Good, so you can be honest,” she said. “Well, I’ll tell you what. My name is Megan. At Clock Coffee, we plant everyday objects into your world. They are designed and bewitched so that only the most desperate people will find them. People who badly need to escape their situation. We don’t provide a fake escapism experience, like a book or a movie will give you, but we give you the opportunity to really escape.”

Evan blinked at her.

“Let me get this straight.. You knew I would find this dog collar in the pet supply store? You bewitched a dog collar? How did you even know who I am?” Evan said, choking on his coffee.

“Can’t tell you that.” she said stiffly.

“So you dread and hate your work,” she continued. “But you feel obligated to keep it as there are few other options.”

“Yeah, that’s it, I guess,” he said.

“What do you want to do? Do you have a dream?”

“Not really.. There’s nothing I really feel I need to do.. Which frustrates me. I want peace. I don’t want to have meetings and deadlines. I just feel like the corporate world is a farce. The idea that you need to go to university and get a high-paying job to support your life. Well, what if your job drains you to the point that you have no life to support?”

Megan nodded at him, taking another sip of her coffee.

Evan squinted at the bright sunlit windows, and then sighed.

“Honestly, your job seems great. It’s quiet here. You just brew drinks all day. People probably ask you about the menu and move on. Nobody expects anything from you,” he said.

Megan stared blankly in reply, and then said, “uh, no.. not exactly. There’s a lot more to what I do than that.. look, Evan, time’s almost up. I can’t sit with customers all day. I help give them an escape, and a little helping nudge, and that’s all I can really do here. I’m not one to mess with time, and there certainly is a limit..” she trailed off.

She dug underneath the counter for a minute and pulled out what seemed to be a raggedy old book, with a blue, peeling cover.

“Nice meeting you, Evan,” she said, handing him the book.

Evan took the book. He immediately felt a now familiar shaking sensation under his feet. The room flipped upside down, blood rushed to his head. All went black, and he felt himself once again, falling, falling..

“Oof!” he cried, landing firmly on his back. He sat up slowly, rubbing his head. He opened his eyes and realized he was still holding the book from Megan. He was sitting in the middle of the hallway, before Jason’s closed office door. He heard voices on the other side, as though nothing had happened. Looking around and seeing nobody coming down from the elevator, he opened up the ratty, old book.

Neatly scribbled handwriting filled the first page,

“Evan,

We are delighted you came to visit us at Clock Coffee. Enclosed in this book, you will find a paper package of ground coffee. Should you need an opportunity to escape again, simply brew and drink this blend. Unfortunately, the dog collar was bewitched to provide escapism for just the one time.

Oh, and Evan, it seems you already know this deep down.. But just remember, there is nothing wrong with leaving a position from a very “grown up” job in favour of something simpler. Consider a nurse I knew, she left her job at the hospital after earning a fancy degree for it, and now cuts grass for campgrounds to make a living. She’s outside all day and has never been happier! This is your life, Evan. The choice is yours.”

Sincerely,

Megan, Clock Coffee.”

Out from the book fell a sealed paper package that felt full of what could only be ground coffee. A piece of paper fell out with it that appeared to be some sort of ad,

“EMERALD LEAVES TEA SHOPPE: HIRING TEA AFICIONADOS TO WORK FLEXIBLE HOURS BREWING AND SERVING TEAS AND TREATS. MUST LOVE TEA. DOGS ALLOWED ON SHIFT. APPLY BY SATURDAY NEXT.”

Evan smiled to himself, picking up his coat from the floor. He walked towards the elevator without saying a word to Jason. He didn’t look back.