The night the earth stood still
September 24, 2019 - 10:47 p.m.

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She calls me while I'm eating dinner. She never calls me. I know something is wrong before I answer the phone.

"I'm at the vet--" she's crying, great heaving, gulping sobs.

"I'm coming," I tell her. "Text me where you are."

~

The neon emergency sign above the door is weird, like the entrance of a club. The door is glass, and I scan the sterile white lobby before I yank open the door. It's empty for a second, then a vet tech slips in through a side door.

"I'm here for--my friend--"

The tech nods and opens one of the doors.

She's there, her face lumpy and red from crying. Her beautiful golden retriever is on a rolling cart. He heaves big, sandpapery breaths. He doesn't even acknowledge me when I stroke his white face. This sweet dog who would bend himself in half with wagging at the sight of me, he can't even sniff my hand.

"He started throwing up blood," she gulps, "and he collapsed. A neighbour brought us here." Her breathing sounds as laboured as her dog's. "The vet...he says it's no good..."

I knew it was coming. She knew too, but how can you look that in the face?

I sit with her and cry while she buries her face in her dog's fur. He barely responds. She kisses him over and over and over until he pulls away because she's smothering him. She kisses his paws, and his face, and rests her cheek on his belly.

Finally she signals the vet. It takes her three tries.

"You don't have to stay for this part," she tells me, and I squeeze her knee, and slip out to the lobby to give her some privacy.

~

There is a woman in the lobby, talking loudly to the tech about her cats. They are both with her, sooty black shadows with green saucer eyes, crouched in the back of her carrier.

I can hear the vet speaking low through the wall, and my friend weeping. The woman turns to me, head rocked forward on a spindly neck, eyes blinking owlishly behind thick glasses.

"Is that your dog?" she asks. I shake my head. I stare at my phone. Who the hell wants to make conversation at a time like this?

She keeps staring at me, willing me to look up so she can say something, but the idea makes me angry. She makes me angry. The weeping should be enough indication.

There is a high shriek, the scraping of a metal wheel on a table, or the death of a beloved friend. I can't tell, and I won't ask.

My friend appears. She is hunched, her hair falling around her face. Her coat over her curved back, the purse dragging on her arm, makes it look like someone has turned gravity up, but only around her.

The tech speaks to her gently, quietly, needing to settle the bill. Stupid paper for the life of her beloved dog.

She nods, gulps, fumbles in her purse. She knows how it goes. She's had so many beloved dogs.

"You know," the woman with the cats pipes up. "You should get pet insurance. Before I had pet insurance, I had two dogs and five cats, and let me tell you, that adds up after a while! Well, my pet insurance, the deductible is only five hundred dollars, and after that, I don't pay anything! What a deal!"

I want to slap her. What a stupid bitch. Her stupid turkey neck. Her stupid glasses. What the fuck is wrong with her. I make vague noises at her and hope she shuts up.

My friend asks for an envelope from the tech. She opens her hand to flash a golden curl. The tech digs under the desk and procures one. Finally, it's time to go.

"Is your dog going to be alright?" the stupid bitch asks.

I stare at her. I don't think my friend heard, thankfully.

I just shake my head, and we leave.

~

Sitting in the car, in the dark. My interior light is burned out. She is side-lit from the light from the emergency vet, and the neon sign.

"Do you want to go somewhere? A coffee? Just for a drive?"

"No," she says. The words drop from her mouth like stones. "I just want to go home."

I feel like we left home behind in the vet's office, but I don't say that. I just take her back to her house.

It is not a good night.

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