We are boys, we are dogs, at one like this with the dirt.
In this dirt, and with Dead Dog with us, we all three of us lift our eyes up to the sun in the sky, this sun that makes dirt out of mud.
Dirt, one of us says.
Sun, one of us says.
Dead Dog does not itch.
Like this, with our faces turned back to face the earth, us boys, at long last, we go, we fall, we curl up our knees, with Dead Dog stretched out in the dirt with us. Like this, we sleep the sleep that would make a bird up in the sky think that all three of us were, like this, face down in the dirt like this, you too, to you, you would think this too, that the three of us face down in the dirt like we are, that what we are is dead.
But we are not dead.
We live.
We live to kiss the earth.
VI. DEAD DOG WALKS
Look here.
Dead Dog is not dead.
Us boys, we are not dead too.
We live.
We get up on our knees and we get up on our feet and like this we start to walk.
We walk.
And then we walk.
In the dust and the sun and through the woods to get to where town used to be, us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, we walk.
The earth we walk on is made of rock and dirt.
The road we walk on to get to where town is, it too is made of rock and dirt and dust.
Us boys, we make dust when we, like this, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, walk.
The dust and the road and the sun in the sky, they walk with us to where town is.
We walk to where town is so that we can see a face that is not ours.
When we get to where town is, to where town used to be, there is not a face for us to see that is not ours.
There is not a boy face or a dog face that is not Dead Dog’s for us to see.
The only face we see is Death’s.
The face of Death.
Death’s face.
Death was a man who lived in the town where the road took us to when it took us from where we lived, out in the woods, to where town was, to where town used to be.
It was Dead Dog who was the one of us who took us to the house where Death lived.
Death lived.
Death was not dead.
Death lived in a house that was made out of wood, with a roof and with floors and with smoke that rose up from the hole in the roof where there was a fire that Death liked to sit in front of and with his hands and with his breath he would stoke it.
What Death’s house did not have was a door.
Where a door should have been there was just this hole in the wall for us to walk on through it.
Death lived in this house with no door on it with no one else but his dead self to live with.
Death was fat.
Death was so fat that had a door been on the front of this house Death would not have fit through it.
Death was that fat.
Death was a fat man with a gut full of death fat.
He looked like he just ate, like he just ate a whole cow, or a whole barn, or a whole town.
That’s how fat Death was.
When us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours, walked in through the hole that was the door to Death’s house, the first thing Death asked us was did we think he was fat.
We shook our heads.
Death took his big fat gut in his fat hands and held it as if to keep it so that the fat of him would not fall off it.
Then Death told us boys to sit.
We did what Death told.
We sat.
Death sat down with us too.
We sat down in chairs that looked like they would have a hard time if Death sat down in them.
Dead Dog sat down with us too.
Good Dog, we said to Dead Dog.
It had been a long walk from the woods to the town to get to Death’s house.
So we all three of us sat down to face Death.
We did not fear Death.
So what if we were in the house of Death?
We lived, we spent our nights with Man.
We were used to what could take place when our eyes were closed up tight to shut out the dark.
We looked at Death’s face.
Death’s face looked like it was made out of mud, or like a lump of raw dough that had not been baked to make bread.
The face of Death was all fat.
It was hard for us to see Death’s dead eyes.
Death’s nose was more of a flap in the fat of Death’s fat face.
Death’s mouth was a dark hole in his head where Death liked to shove in food through.
Death tried to stand up.
He took hold of his gut and tried to push up.
But he could not get his dead self up.
So us boys, we each of us gave Death a hand up.
Death took hold of us by our boy hands and Death stood up.
Death thanked us for this.
Then Death tried to eat us.
We let go of Death’s hands and we ran.
We ran out through the front hole in Death’s house and then we ran back to and through the woods.
Just once we both of us stopped and we both of us looked back.
It looked to us like Death was stuck in the hole that was the door to Death’s house.
Death raised up his right hand.
You boys come back real soon, you hear, Death called out. Us boys, we did not say that we would not. We both knew that we would. So what if Death tried to eat us?
He’d have to catch us first.
Death would have to come to our house in the woods at night for him to eat us up.
Death, it looked like to us, was a cork stuck in the door that was a hole in the front of Death’s own house of death.
VII. DEAD DOG SITS
When Death tried to eat us, Dead Dog did not get up like us and run.
Dead Dog stayed right where he was.
Dead Dog sat where he sat when Death told us all to sit.
So we get it in us to get back up and go and run back to go back to Death’s house.
To get us Dead Dog back.
When we get to Death’s house, Dead Dog sits up when he sees us.
Dead Dog, we see, is not a dog that is dead.
Dead Dog is not a dog that Death ate up.
We feared this in our heads that this was what Death would do to Dead Dog when Dead Dog did not like us get up and run.
I’m so glad to see that you boys came back is what Death says to us when he sees that we are back.
Give us back our dog, we say.
Take him, Death tells us.
Death says, This dog’s a free to go dog.
Come, Dead Dog, we say.
We say, It’s time to go back home.
But Dead Dog does not come when we call him.
Dead Dog sits right where he is next to Death.
When Dead Dog sits and does not get up to go, the fat on Death’s face flips and rolls with what us boys know is a smile.
Would you boys care to join me for lunch? Death asks us.
We ate, we say, though this is not true.
I can hear what is in us, what is in our own guts, what is not in there, it growls when Death says the word lunch.
It’s been three days since us boys have put food in our mouths that is not made of bone or dirt.
There is a smell here in Death’s house that smells like feet.
We look at Death’s face.
We watch him lick his lips.
It’s your loss, Death says.
Death says to us, It’s your choice.
If you change your minds, Death tells us.
We take hold of Dead Dog by the scruff of fur on the back of Dead Dog’s neck.
We give Dead Dog a pull for the hole that is the door to Death’s house.
Dead Dog turns his head and takes a snap at the hand that he knows that this hand, it is not the hand that feeds him.