The Banter Between Bloodhounds

Pale sunshine bounced off an undisturbed expanse of fresh fallen snow, flooded the windows of a lonely log cabin, and bled through their ancient barriers of tattered curtains and collaged newspapers. Faded layers of black ink print on arts and culture, sports, and events not so current diffused the brilliance of the light prisms inside to a stale yellow glow. Towers of old books grew from the cluttered floorboards, reaching toward the squat ceiling to further obscure the brightness, gently swaying at their roots and pinnacles like seaweed. Even the sun discriminated between the two written conveyances of information, bleaching one to a frayed illegibility while preserving the other in warm amber tones. Within the cramped wind tunnels of hardcover stacks, in the center of the haphazard maze, sat Todd in a ratty armchair that was more a malignant growth than the throne he revered it to be. A second skin blending into his linty flannel shirt jacket, he could barely recall a memory without it for how long they’d quite literally stuck together.

By the time the outside light of day crooked and bended to illumine his eyes it was no longer harsh, and so any squinting on Todd’s part was self-inflicted and automatic, a manifestation of his inherent mistrust. Under a serious and canyon-ridged brow, hedged with a canopy of tousled goose feathers for eyebrows, those half-closed eyes skittered around the room like marbles but not without purpose. A king overseeing the stable permanence of their realm must leave nothing within its borders unscrutinized. Hushed as a church was the cabin, save for the groaning trunks and beams, the singing tea kettle that joined the whistling wind in a duet three times a day without fail, the settling dust on any which surface, the crackling fireplace, the echoes of Todd’s wet and volatile belches, and the ceaseless drilling of his stuttered flatulence into the same cherished seat cushion. Outside was quieter still.

On the ancient, leather-bound pedestal of an Encyclopædia Britannica atop the shortest book stack just out of Todd’s reach, and a foot taller than his seated bald pate, sat the latest object of his squinted scorn, screaming for his attention. Already there gathered a sheer blanket of dust on the box since he first acquired it days earlier during his regular fortnightly trip into town. Considering how loathe he was to deviate from his strict routine, it was a wonder he took so quickly to incorporate seething at inanimate objects into the other daily rituals that made up his already busy schedule. Said rituals consisted mostly, though not entirely, of seething at other things, some inanimate and the majority theorized. Channeling his consternation like a leaky spigot, he bore holes into the plastic and cardboard in hopes that it’d disappear before he succumbed to its temptation, absolving him of the unprecedented urge to go against everything he believed in.

The product picture mocked him. The easy-to-follow instructions on the back flirted him to a blush. Every detail about the purchase rubbed him the wrong way, down to the color scheme and typeface of the logo. But above all it was the principle, for Todd was nothing if not a principled man. Just last week it would’ve been unheard of for him to be seen anywhere near something so extravagant, not to mention expensive. It was downright antithetical to his carefully curated and essentially moralist reputation. And it frightened him more than someone as proud as he would care to admit. 

The only alteration he’d performed on the box was to remove the price sticker lest it horrify him further. From reading countless books he came to abhor the influx of scientific frivolities on the market, referring to each new passing fad as a “shiny band aid.” New generations and models were churned out faster than the previous hardware could depreciate, claiming to facilitate life, to fill some void inside the disillusioned masses while in reality tricking them into repeat customers like junkies. Computers shrunk until they fit in tight jean pockets and were called phones, as if that hadn’t already existed. Media became so social it was bad etiquette to voice an unpopular opinion, and the only successful gatherings found most faces glued to LCD screens. As the line blurred between wants and needs, the voids in untold souls and wallets grew more explicit by the day. 

Todd’s already hefty savings account was bolstered by his devout abstention from hopping on fleeting band wagons. Basking in the smug ostracism of his technological chastity, he greedily hoarded all his money away like a dragon with its golden trove, and with about as much use for it too. Until the fateful day when science finally caught up to his innermost desires, shaking the very bedrock of his beliefs with an offer too delicious to refuse. He’d already made up his mind with the revelatory newspaper clipping—prompting a brusque dismissal of the eager salesclerk’s rehearsed pitch—and gone so far as to buy the damned thing. But he rationalized that only by opening the package and using the device would he truly be jeopardized. It was only so much consolation to remember he was well within the grace period of a 30-day return policy, should anything go awry or he come to his senses. He prided himself in always keeping receipts.

Glaring at the gadget, all the what if’s and could be’s—and worse still, the could have been’s if he didn’t go through with it—assembled into an anchor which burrowed deeper into Todd’s chest until he wasn’t breathing. He unleashed a raspy, phlegm-pocked howl punctured by wheezy gasps for air. Doubling over in his chair, the cough danced on the spectrum of his vocal register, starting at a pitchy falsetto then careening down to a murky baritone that threatened to hawk up a lung. By the fireplace, a wrinkled figure easily misconstrued as a crumpled bearskin was rousted from its sleep on the floor and growled at the tortured hacks as if to disperse them like scared jackrabbits. Sure enough, seconds later the old man triumphed over his fit and negotiated it down to a persistent but manageable throat clearing. Massaging his Adam’s apple, Todd jutted his chin out in acknowledgment of the guttural rumbling in the dog’s throat and said, “Morning to you too, Kaspar, you ol’ good for nothin’.”

A hearty yawn broke Kaspar’s snarled salutation and when it passed he was tired all over again and no longer felt like picking up where he left off. Much like the old man, the old mutt took his sweet time gathering himself first thing in the morning, sorting his thoughts while wearing out the same treasured seat, day after day, eroding the spot like weather. Many claim that dogs and their owners end up looking alike, and that much could be said for Kaspar and Todd; stubbly grey whiskers on droopy jowls, sunken eyes that seldom sickened of the same sights, an unfailingly cantankerous disposition. It’d be a sensible mistake to confuse the two for master and pet. But this was not the case, and not in the sense that the dog was “family” or some alpha beast beyond taming or domesticity.

Kaspar belonged to Todd’s wife, who was still legally married to him even though they hadn’t seen or spoken with one another in over ten years. Like an honorary sister of the Fates, she was responsible for any semblance shared between her then newly adopted junior pup and her increasingly reclusive husband. She had made it abundantly clear how she prioritized the same qualities in a man as she did a dog, saying, “things’re easier to keep track of that way.” It became immediately evident upon introduction that neither of the two males in her life would relent in his quest to be Top Dog in her eyes. She never told Todd how infuriating it was that he should even think it necessary to compete, letting it fester inside her instead. And so an unsteady treaty between the two parties—Todd, a reluctant neophyte pet owner, and Kaspar, a delinquent mongrel tornado twice returned to the pound—was established and ensued long after the wife’s sudden departure.

Initial confrontations of bared teeth and broken skin eventually simmered down to a mutual and reserved disdain bordering on apathy, if not respect. Never once did Todd feel a pet owner’s burden of responsibility for theirs was a dynamic of unlikely siamese roommates, with one having to open doors and serve food for the other. Aside from that, each spent time in their own bubble, quietly coming to terms with the irony of everything that kept them at odds being all that made them so alike, even if they’d never come around to fully appreciating it. Somehow, they managed to rally in the wake of their abandonment, to coexist and count on each other for company, no matter how contentious. For unexplored reasons, though certainly nothing lily-livered like rescuing him from probable euthanasia, Todd had decided against giving up Kaspar when he realized his was the only say left in the matter of whether or not to keep him. But considering how his self-imposed exile had all but eradicated his social circles—except for the store owners, clerks, GP and veterinarian in town—just maybe he kept Kaspar around for an ultimate chance at genuine conversation. He would die before admitting his lingering childish desire to one day be able to communicate with animals, especially one so rancid and vexing as the one Kaspar had grown to be. Yet here was the answer to this once insurmountable obstacle, this fantasy wrapped in plastic and waiting to be unboxed, put to the test and deemed worthy of every rainy day penny spent on it.

Developing his clairvoyance of humanity’s trajectory with enough devoted reading time, Todd subconsciously augured, even privately anticipated, a day in his lifetime when he would conquer his fear to wield it as a tool in his endless pursuit of knowledge. When science would morph into fiction and trigger dormant, wild imaginings from his boyhood; before the corruption of age drowned impossible dreams in a cynical wave. And now with he and Kaspar’s shared history, it felt to him there was more on the line than ever before, more treacherous but potentially rewarding terrain to maneuver in their dialogue. Here was someone else he could turn the questions on again, someone likely sitting on a reservoir of information not to be found in any of the hundreds and thousands of enveloping books. Kaspar might have all the answers to his questions, hindered up till now only by their inability to communicate in a language they both understood. And if only Todd looked inward, deeply and for long enough, to learn a sense of what it was he sought and what would sate his curiosity.

But what would he ask him first? Was banter a thing with bloodhounds? Hadn’t they learned enough of each other to skip the pleasantries, skate over the icebreakers? And if he didn’t know he was dying yet, should Todd deliver the bad news or cut straight to the chase? Which was what, exactly? Hey Kaspar, did my wife express aloud anything that was left unsaid from that joke of a letter she left on the mantel? What do you mean you can’t remember, you must have watched her pack her bags and officially walk out the door, dump us both! She ever tell you why? The truth was that by the time he figured out what was imperative to ask the dog, their time would be significantly depleted if Kaspar weren’t already dead and gone.

Looking from Kaspar to the box and back to the dog, Todd imagined which floppy ear he’d clip what piece to, whether he’d refasten Kaspar’s collar for the receiver to be that much closer to his voice box. He wondered whether any blood would be shed in the attempt, like in the old days, and how long it would take for the first drop to be drawn. He wondered briefly whether the device would even work but laughed off the thought for all the things he knew technology to have made possible, such as the moon landing, online shopping, and cyber bullying. There was never a doubt that these doohickeys would work, it was how they worked that frightened him then and nearly paralyzed him now.

There was mourning for his books, for his own imagination, already embedded within the christening of this newest and latest in a long line of unholy contraptions. What he once believed was intended only to deceive and distract, like so many curses misread as blessings come before, was now the strongest potential harbinger of truth. Heaven only knew how discredited Todd’s own mind had become in the scaling caducity of his isolation. Kaspar lay there, waiting to tell the truth the way he saw it, to provide a different perspective that would in turn validate Todd’s lonely viewpoints. Perhaps it was Todd committing the cardinal sin of anthropomorphizing, but the dog really did appear emphatic as of late, more than ever before, as if he had something to say, some parting words. Something like absolution or a mother’s lullaby.

“What’s two plus two?” Todd blurted aloud to Kaspar, who lay still and stared into the fire with his large head on his paws.

“What’s the meaning of life?” The talking wasn’t yet irksome because, in a way, the old man’s gravelly voice mixed with the disintegrating cinders and snapping twigs of the fire, the only music Kaspar knew and enjoyed, save for the songs of migrating ducks.

"Did you ever even have an 'attack mode'? I would've loved to see you sic some petty burglar, see what you're made of. But knowing you, you would've let them rob me blind on purpose." Now the talking bothered Kaspar and he growled lowly without turning to look Todd in the face while he threatened him. Todd didn’t notice, so fixated was he in his last-ditch attempt to render the device unnecessary, and his martyrdom conserved.

“What kind of a bitch was your mother, and the tramp that begot you?” If only Kaspar would answer him without it, even telepathically. 

“Do you know you’re gonna die? My allergies aren’t that bad that I can’t smell the stink of death on you, and I know it isn’t me. Vet said you can’t even see or hear anymore, but I don’t believe him. I reckon you hear me just fine—” 

A punchy bark like a firework shot in the room, reverberated up the chimney, wiggled some icicles on the pane, and put a stop to Todd’s sleep-deprived ramblings. The squint slackened from his eyes and he looked soberly around the room, at Kaspar warming by the fire while giving him the cold shoulder, before resting his head back and shutting his eyes. A familiar silence crept into the room, and at one point Todd thought he heard birds chirping outside his window before he remembered there were no birds where he lived, and he filled in the blanks with memories of crying gulls on the coast. He wasn’t sure how long had passed before he voiced another question without thinking, “You hungry?”

Kaspar’s ears twitched and he slowly turned his head to face the old man. A long, pink tongue encased in filmy drool escaped his black jowls. In unison, the two elders hoisted themselves up from their worn and dented seats and wound their way through heaps and piles. Kaspar strayed behind Todd as his joints awoke and warmed up independently of one another. Odds and ends grew from the walls and floors, menacing the square footage except from whence they came by the fireplace, where they were going, the kitchenette, and where they visited in between, the latrine. In a green bowl with “Kaspar” etched in black marker above the crossed-out name of another unknown pet, Tod forked a brown cylinder from a can advertising fancy pet food. He barely had time to retrieve the utensil before Kaspar shoved his snout in to devour the chow. Todd sneered at him instinctively and then something softened in his grimace as he caught a glimpse of the gadget through a gap in the hoarded junk mountains.

“That’s the last type of that chow. I know it’s your favorite brand, your majesty. Remind me to pick up some extra when we go in for your next visit to the Vet.” Kaspar was halfway through the bowl, and had learned not to lose any scrumptious morsels by the wayside, periodically lapping at the floor for stragglers. Todd scratched his sandpaper chin while watching the old mutt savor his breakfast like a thriving pup then reached for a a can opener and an expired can of peaches. As he wrenched the lid off the top, Todd watched Kaspar lick his bowl spotless.

“Y’know, you’re a good dog. Dunno if I ever did tell you that.”

Certain there was nothing left in his bowl, Kaspar looked up and growled in Todd's general direction before turning around and starting back toward the fire. Slurping down a syrupy peach slice as he walked, Todd followed Kaspar through the book towers with juice running down his mouth and onto his shirt jacket. Between bites he mumbled something about returning a few things next time they went in town, that it was a very good thing he always kept receipts.