The Old Woman and her Dog

Wrinkly Sharpei Dog

by CJ Heck

In the town where I used to live, there was a wonderful walking path down by the river. It was lovely, complete with benches, porta-potties, flower gardens, totems carved by a local artisan, and a wooden footbridge so you could cross over to the other side. 

On any given day along the scenic three-mile walk, you might see ducks, geese, groundhogs, heron, deer, and even an occasional skunk -- though this wasn't something you actually looked forward to seeing. I remember once, while speed-walking with a friend, seeing a baby skunk in the grass beside the path just ahead of us. We steered a very wide berth, just in case mama skunk was nearby watching her baby.

I used to love going there for a walk, or with a good book, when I needed to unwind. One fall afternoon I sat reading on my favorite bench, which was set in the grass under a tree, several feet from the path. I was enjoying a rare day off from writing and editing. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell it was fall. The heady scent of decaying leaves hung sweetly in the air.

The usual quiet was suddenly breached when a flock of Canadian geese flew overhead. Looking up, I had to smile as one honking straggler tried desperately to catch up so he could take his place in the perfect "V". It really was a beautiful day -- a really fine day.

Then I saw the strangest thing I've ever seen. This all came about as I was turning a page in my book and just happened to look up for a second.

Sitting on a bench kitty-cornered across the path from me was a heavy-set old woman wearing a long pink dress. She was noisily gumming a soda straw poking out of the hole on the top of a Pepsi can. I almost laughed, because she reminded me of a starving baby nursing at its mother's breast.

The woman's round face looked older than ancient. Her wrinkles had actually wilted into tiers. It vaguely reminded me of the time I was in a hurry and frosted a cake when it was still too warm. The icing slowly slid down the sides of the cake in much the same fashion.

The old woman's eyes were deeply set and nearly hidden, almost like two dark asterisks set into the folds of her flesh. I tried not to stare. I tried just turning away, but I failed miserably at both. I had to try even harder not to laugh, I really did, and I didn't actually lose the battle -- until I saw her dog and what he considered his role to be with this strange woman.

At first glance, I only saw the woman, but all at once, with a high-speed upward-outward motion, this hulking canine face popped out from between the woman's legs down at ground level. I thought to myself, my God, that is the ugliest dog I have ever seen!

 

Wrinkled Sharpei

The dog's face was framed on either side and above by the woman's long pink skirt and nearly engulfed by its own collection of wrinkles. His eyes were like two lumps of coal stuffed into a wad of brown dough. The mouth was gross, a gaping, slobbery pink hole that housed a pink tongue that hung all the way down to the bully-boy collar around its neck. Just above its mouth, also poked into the brown dough, was what I presumed to be its nose.

The total picture looked so insane! It was hilarious! Here was this grotesque old woman's head, and down below, her massive ugly twin peering out from between her legs! The wrinkled, toothless woman perfectly mirrored the animal beneath her.

But that's still not when I lost my battle to laughter. Up to this point, I had managed to contain myself pretty well, although I will admit, I did look around to see if I was on Candid Camera …

The old woman finally finished her Pepsi and got up from her bench. Slowly, she shuffled towards a trash can that was bolted to a fence post near the edge of the path. Sure enough, the dog was just behind her.

After dropping her soda can into the barrel, she turned her head to the side and with a series of revolting sounds, she belched loudly and hawked up a wad of phlegm -- a loogie of vast proportions, I might add -- and she promptly spat it on the sidewalk. Without missing a beat, the dog waddled over to the mess and promptly "cleaned it up" for her.

I was so busy trying to keep my gag and retch reflexes in check that I missed where the two went after that, but when I recovered my composure, I took a quick look. The old woman was back on the bench, the dog below, its enormous head again neatly framed in the pink folds of cloth and once more peering out at the world from between her legs.

It was that final picture and the improbable role reversal between dog and human that finally eroded what remained of my self-control and I drowned in a sea of laughter. My only thought was, thank God I didn't know her -- and I grabbed my book and ran before I peed myself.

"A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck

The Fall of Life

Life is what we make it ... 

A Short Story
by CJ Heck 

Anna was signing a birthday card for her oldest daughter at the kitchen table and enjoying a late morning cup of coffee. 

The card was lovely with a beautiful verse. She had spent a lot of time in the card store yesterday, crying over the sad ones, laughing at the silly ones, until she finally found the right one, the card that captured her sentiments exactly. 

This was truly the perfect card, all about motherly love, and the pride she felt in the woman and mother Chelsea had become. Then something suddenly occurred to her -- Chelsea was turning thirty-eight.

Then a thought caught Anna by surprise, like a sucker-punch -- not that Chelsea would be thirty-eight. No. It was more than that. Anna was exactly twenty years older than her daughter, which meant that Anna would be fifty-eight this year. 

I'm now in the fall of my life, Anna thought … how the hell did I get here so quickly? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was young and crouched at life's starting gate, waiting for the race to begin, with all of my plans and my hopes and dreams stretched out before me? 

Wasn't it just yesterday that we were awaiting the arrival of our first-born, Chelsea? Anna's thoughts turned melancholy and they reached back, just for a while.

As a child, she remembered looking up at her grandparents and feeling such awe. These were her daddy's parents. Back then, she had thought they must be as old as the trees. Their hair was snow white and they always came with bottles of pills, which they lined up in a long row on the kitchen counter top.  

Being so old, she had thought, they were probably very wise, too, so she always listened closely to what Grampa shared. He told her stories about what it was like when he was a little boy and there were more horses on the streets than there were cars. He said they didn't have TV's back then. 

They read books and played games at the kitchen table when it rained, and when it was sunny, they played fun outside games, or climbed trees, or went swimming in the pond. She remembered the wonderful way grampa explained things so she could almost see everything he was describing, just through his words.

Yes, Anna thought, they were old, but I adored them and I saw them through eyes full of love. I loved hearing all the stories about when they were young. I remember going for ice cream cones at the dairy store with them, and hearing grandma hum while she baked pies -- and grampa puffing on his curved pipe that smelled so pungent and good. 

Then another sobering thought hit Anna. I am now older than these wonderful grandparents were when they passed away.  Oh, how I miss them, and suddenly she realized something. She wanted to be just like them.

Time moves so quickly. No, not in our youth. Then, time only gently pushes us forward towards the finish line and we hardly notice time at all. Then, slowly at first, then faster, life grows full and gets busy and things change. Where time used to stop us in our tracks, we suddenly learn just how fast it really goes -- like the thirty-eighth birthday of a child.  

Here in the fall of my life, time has simply caught me off guard. I have a few regrets, Anna thought. There are things I wish I hadn’t done, things I should have done, and things I wish I had done differently. But there are the many wonderful things that I’m happy to have done and glad that I had the chance to do.

Anna took another sip of her coffee, which had turned ice cold in her cup. I don’t know how long my fall will last, and I certainly have no promises that I will ever see winter, but I do know I've enjoyed a full life ... and damn it, it’s not over yet! 

I’m going to treat every day from now on with renewed appreciation. There are things I still want to accomplish, dreams that can still come true and children and grandchildren to hug and tell my stories to, and I'm fortunate to have a wonderful husband in my life to share it all with.

Anna remembered something her mother used to say, "Life is a gift, baby girl. How we live it is our gift to ourselves." Now that saying makes perfect sense, she thought, with a silent thank you to her mother. 

She decided to pour another cup of coffee, call her daughter, and then start opening more of her gift ... 





(from the book, "Bits and Pieces")

Buy at Amazon