Friday, December 18, 2009

The Zac.


As much as I like to emphasise it in my blog, I can’t deny that my life isn’t just good times. I mean I try my hardest to indulge myself in good times only, but every now and again something bad just happens; it’s the way life is. We were sitting at McDonalds, it was a typical night, Jack was in the front seat eating his food, I was in the front because I have permanent front in Jack’s car and Aaron and Andrew were in the back. In case you don’t know, Andrew has three dogs, Molly, the youngest, Cooper, the one in the middle and Zac, the oldest. Ever since I have known Andrew, I have known Zac as the old dying dog. I mean, when I first met him, he was like half blind, half deaf and struggled to move around. As of late Zac is fully blind, fully deaf and... Yeah, I honestly don’t know how he knows where he is going when he struggles to walk about, I mean he can’t see or hear anything, and supposedly his sense of smell is gone too. Now whether his sense of smell is actually gone or I just assumed that and made it up, it doesn’t really matter because yeah, the dog is just old.

I heard the default Nokia ringtone ring coming from the backseat and I look back to see Andrew pick up his phone. It was Karyn (his mum) calling him, but I couldn’t hear her at all. I couldn’t hear the tone of her voice or even who it was at first but I figured it out along the way of the conversation as what Andrew was saying made it more and more obvious who it was, and what had happened. Andrew ended the conversation with Karyn asking if Jack, Aaron and I could also come in and say our goodbyes, and she said it was fine. The car trip from Cross Roads McDonalds to Andrew’s wasn’t a far one at all, but it felt like so much longer. I don’t know whether it was because I was just thinking, and we were all down, or if it was because Jack took this extra long route to get there for a reason that I still don’t know, but the trip there was a long and sad one.

I have never had a pet die or anything like that. Well I have had like, goldfish and hermit crabs die but they aren’t even like real animals or anything, and I mean vegetarians even eat fish so are goldfish even classified as pets or animals or anything? Why vegetarians can eat fish has always been a mystery to me, I mean as far as I am concerned, a fish is as much an animal as a cow or a chicken, but vegetarians can’t eat those animals and still call themselves vegetarians, but for some reason they just made fish the exception. Currently I have a pet dog called Snoopy, I lost track of how old he is a little while ago but I think he is like five or six years old. We also have these fish I think but seeing as though they aren’t really animals I won’t bother going into detail about them, I mean I won’t shed a tear when the fish die because, well I don’t even know if we have them anymore but I know that when Snoopy goes I won’t be able to control myself.

In the car, it was almost as if Andrew heard the news of his goldfish dying. He hadn’t shed a tear by the time we got there and even when he walked into his house he still kept a dry face. I cried when Marley died in Marley and Me. Marley; a fake dog in a movie that doesn’t exist, a dog that was probably played by like five different dogs throughout the movie, but Andrew didn’t cry when Zac, his actual dog who was real had died. We were hesitant to walk in to the house, I mean there was an eerie vibe walking into the place and I just didn’t feel like I belonged there. Aaron felt much more freaked out by it all though, because when Jack walked in, I followed him and Aaron struggled to follow me. We walked past Andrew’s other two dogs, jumping around barking saying hello, it’s almost like they didn’t know that the other dog that lived there wasn’t alive anymore.

We went outside and looked inside the kennel to see him just lying there peacefully. Andrew was happy that, well we were all happy that he went so peacefully but you know, it was still sad. Andrew stuck his hand in the kennel to stroke him when Zac popped his head up and started licking Andrew’s hand. Andrew got up, walked inside and started to tell Karyn before she told him to ‘fuck off’ and stop lying. As I stood in front of the kennel with Jack and Aaron we saw what we did not expect to see this visit, Zac walk outside the kennel and somehow come towards us and licking us and rubbing up against us. He smelt like he was dead, but then again he always smells like that, Zac is by far the worst smelling dog in the world so I guess that not even death could take such an odour and it sent him back here.

What was meant to be one of the worst, saddest and most awkward visits to anyone’s house ever turned out to be one of the funniest. Whether Zac simply wasn’t dead or whether Andrew has the gift of bringing the dead back to life, all I know is that when Snoopy goes, touch wood, I’m just going to ring up Andrew and be like ‘hey man, wanna come round?’

2 comments:

Maurice Sternwood said...

Marley was played by about 20, I believe.
What dog is that in the picture you provided?

Cosma said...

it was just a google image dog that looks kind of like zac haha

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