Paris, 1884

Georges lay with his back flat against the grass, his eyes facing not up at the sky but at the leaves of the tree that blocked his view of the clouds. He listened as tiny, well-groomed dogs barked and ran in circles just a few feet away from his head. He closed his eyes and focused on the rustling of the grass as the dogs played with each other. Nothing. He felt nothing.

Suddenly the rustling and the barking went quiet, and Georges opened his eyes and wondered what they were doing. Suddenly the thought came to him that they might be looking at him, lying there, and they may just pee on his head. He closed his eyes again and waited for it to come. But it didn’t, and after a few moments of dryness Georges sat up and looked behind him. The dogs were gone, their owner must have taken them away. He propped himself up on his elbows and faced the river. It was bright blue and picturesque, a small sailboat drifted in from his periphery. He looked to his right and his left and saw couples, families, picnic blankets, umbrellas for the heat, a sweet little girl picking happily at the dandelions at her feet, showing them to her mother who held onto her hand and smiled and said that “they’re absolutely beautiful, honey.” The mother looked even happier and prouder than her little girl. Nothing.

Georges sighed miserably. “My kingdom for something worthwhile,” he thought. Even dog piss? Well, even dog piss. And there it was, in an instant: a dog. He knew nothing about dogs, but he would get a dog. Where does one get dogs? Not the pet store, right? No, dogs are too high maintenance for a simple pet store. What was it called? A kernel? No, that’s popcorn. “A kennel!” He said it out loud when he found it. He looked at the couple sitting beside him, worried they may have heard him and thought he was strange, but they didn’t even notice. They were too busy admiring the beautiful river and the pristine white sailboat that had just drifted in from their periphery.

Georges stood up quickly, putting his head into a spin. He was too excited to wait to get his bearings and made a beeline for the short black fence separating the grass of the park from the stone of the wide Parisian street. He leaped over dramatically and landed off balance in front of a man going for an afternoon stroll. He ran excitedly down the street, examining the signs of the storefronts as he went, looking for a picture of a dog or a bone or something to let him know his prize was located there. 

He slowed down as his breath and his lackluster body caught up with him. He strolled, sweating heavily under the Sunday heat. He listened for dogs but the only ones he could hear were the ones walking the street, already with owners of their own. Was there not a single dog in all of Paris that was free to give him company? No, he thought. If there were no dogs in Paris then he would search all of France. If there were none in France then he would travel to the far edges of Europe. In fact, he may very well search all the world. The Japanese have dogs, don’t they? Don’t they now say that that is where all the dogs of the world first came from? Well then, a Japanese dog must be the very best kind of dog. That’s the dog that he would ask for once he found the kerne– kennel! The kennel.

He walked on, on and on until he could no longer hear his flip-flops slapping against the stone underneath him. He could still feel the Sunday sun on him, though. It slowly began to burn as his hope drained.

As Georges searched through the Parisian roads, his countrymen toiled through the foreign jungles of Indochina, fighting for the remnants, the dreams of a dead empire. And yet even they were not so miserable and hopeless and wretched as Georges, who searched for hours that afternoon, for a dog he now realized he would never see.

The old thought, the old ambition, of searching Europe and the world, died very quickly. Georges no longer believed in his dream, he only wanted to go back to his spot in the grass where the white sailboat would come in from the periphery. 

He found his spot in the grass, still open for him, right next to the couple that was surprisingly still holding each other just as they were when he left. The mother and the daughter picking at flowers were both still there as well. Georges lay flat on his back. Something was bothering him, making him uncomfortable. Not his failed quest for a canine companion, something else. Had the grass grown in the time that he was gone? It felt like it was stabbing him deep into his shoulders.

He sat up and switched positions to lay on his side, facing the young couple. They weren’t looking at him, they seemed stuck in their spot, holding on to each other like it was the last days of Earth. Like if they were to let go of one another, or were distracted from one another for even a part of an instant, they would never have each other again.

“Hey,” Georges said.

“Hey.” They weren’t looking at him. Georges couldn’t tell if it was because they couldn’t hear him or if they were simply ignoring him.

“Hey, are you ignoring me?” He asked. No response. Georges figured that since they didn’t answer that question, they must be unable to hear him. He reached over and tapped the man on the shoulder.

The man whipped his head around to give Georges a look of both confusion and anger. “Can I help you?” He asked in a tone that was meant to scare Georges off. The woman watched Georges with big, buggy, beautiful eyes.

“I just wanted to let you know, you two seem like a lovely couple,” he smiled.

Neither the man nor the woman said anything. They both looked at Georges with utter confusion. He had ruined their beautiful Sunday afternoon, their anniversary picnic. And he had done so simply by being there and being who he was and where he was and how he was. With just a single tap on the shoulder and a few words. He had destroyed it all for them. Georges laid back down on the stabbing grass. Nothing. Just nothing.

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Sante