I loathed to think that my last years should elapse in utter seclusion, so I rescued a dog from the shelter midway through the pandemic. Bunda was a seven-year-old black mutt with traces of cocker spaniel. I calculated that her age was just right to leave this world before my lungs gave out: she wouldn’t suffer the loss of her owner, and I wouldn’t have to endure loneliness much longer.
People at the shelter told me they’d found Bunda alongside the road, tied to a pole in the middle of winter.
My heart melted—she looked so fragile and vulnerable. The shelter lady thanked me. “Older dogs rarely find a new home,” she said.
“I need someone to match my energy,” I answered.
She nodded, weighing my words.
When I took her in, she looked malnourished, despite spending nearly three months in the shelter after her initial rescue. Her fur was patchy; her ears were covered in scars. The shelter lady said in her sibilant voice, “You should’ve seen her then. She looks so much healthier now!” The other volunteers were about to show me pictures from the day they found her, but I declined, unable to process more barbarity.
Bunda was so cautious stepping into my car that I had to shove her in. She whimpered and resisted with all her might, scratching the door, probably recalling how her last car journey had ended, expecting the worst.
At home, her tail began to wag and she began to sniff every corner of the house. I left her to it, assuming a nonchalant attitude to communicate that this house was hers as much as it was mine. I kept hearing her paws scratch the parquet floor. The sound filled me with an incomprehensible sense of contentment. Then, as if someone from above had to moderate my ecstasy, I had one of the worst coughing fits. It brought down on all fours, my lungs rattling like some rusty engine with a loose bolt. A metallic tang filled my mouth as my breath hollowed. I ended up coughing saliva laced with blood into my palm. My eyes teared up as though I got hit by a football on my nose.
After I caught my breath and wiped my eyes, I found her leaning on the side of my leg, inquiring with those large brown eyes whether I was all right. I kneeled and petted her head, tracing fingers around her long, marvelous ears covered in scar tissue. I cried for the first time in many years, almost a decade after my mother’s funeral. My tears held not only the notion of loss but also the arrival of something new, and just as inevitably, they contained secret knowledge of my bitter end, I realized soon after. However, I chose to avoid the truth. Denial made sense then.
Bunda’s tilted head and questioning look justified my tears that day. I felt strangely soothed, to the point of idleness and peace. Nothing mattered beyond my immediate surroundings. Things happened, and I let them pass. The only thing I clung to was Bunda.
One could say Bunda evoked in me what no human could. The depth of empathy, for instance. It’s much easier to scold humans for their imperfections, write them off for mistakes they’ve made, judge without giving room for an explanation—that’s what I’d kept doing to my father up until his death, never able to forgive his disappearance when I was eleven. I never gave him another chance.
Not so with Bunda. She could scratch the door after I’d left her home alone for a couple of hours, she could piss on the carpet, she could tear my favorite cushion apart; it didn’t matter what type of surprise she pulled on me: I could always take it in an easy stride. I’d say, “Oh Bunda, you silly mutt,” and the anger would leave me immediately, like air escaping a balloon.
I took her wherever I went: to the park, community center, supermarket, and so on. Us, together, everywhere. Next thing I knew, we shared the same bed as though we were an elderly couple. This constant presence made us dependent on each other, perhaps too dependent, considering my rapidly failing health. She developed what a vet explained to me as separation anxiety. And even if she was a mutt, apparently it was a very common dysregulation in cocker spaniels. “It’s a breed thing, she probably got it from that side of the gene pool,” he had said during my visit. I won’t lie; I’ve got some of that separation anxiety as well, maybe it ran in my genes, too. I hated the idea of overcoming our separation issues. The vet suggested gradual exposure. “No,” I said, “I cannot bear a second of her whining, it hurts too much.”
But life was manageable, worth living with its ups and downs. You can handle some hardships if there’s a solid base underneath. I even felt like Bunda helped me get into better shape with all the walking we did. I allowed myself to believe I had more time left than I first anticipated. Until I went for a check-up and my make-believe world shattered into pieces.
Dr. Hanneman looked at me and said, “Metastasis, Robert.”
“So here we are,” I said.
He wanted to prescribe me some meds and procedures to “manage the spreading and give me more time.” But I knew how drugs worked. They helped you with something, but you paid the price of a gazillion side effects. In some way, all medicine is poison. I’m thankful he didn’t beat around the bush.
The cigarette I smoked outside the hospital never tasted as good.
Then I came home. Bunda was waiting for me.
That’s when it struck me, though I knew it all along: the only reason why it was going to be difficult to die was Bunda. I was naïve to believe that my calculations would pan out just as projected. Maybe I was more desperate for connection than I thought. Maybe I underestimated what a strong bond can form between two species. I read headlines of dogs mourning their owners, I watched A Dog’s Tale, and still, I didn’t think such a thing could befall me. That sweet poison, human folly.
My health worsened rapidly. I turned yellow from one day to another—skin, nails and teeth. Getting out of bed felt like an unreachable goal, not to mention leaving the house, descending two flights of stairs with a leash in hand, Bunda pulling, eager to sniff and relieve herself.
I lost hope in recovery. I lost hope in outliving Bunda. Calculating my future in advance. Vain calculations. Dicey games. How many people passed away, staking their bets on health only to be snatched away asleep? From breathing to silence, from beating to stillness.
Now I faced brooding silence and stillness—near the journey’s end, next to a beating heart, a panting tongue. Unfair, this imminent separation ahead. I grew miserable.
Bunda rested her warm body near me on the sofa as I ate my TV dinner from the plastic plate. Chewing an utterly tasteless microwaved potato, I decided to put an end to suffering, hers and mine, forever. I had no energy for anything but this final act. I had to put her to sleep, kill her. The ghastly pointlessness of my life glared at me from the screen: people on a TV show doing what people on TV shows do—performing.
Thinking about ways to end Bunda’s life twisted my guts. My mind decided on an abominable yet sure-fire way. I was going to cut her throat and hang myself afterward. Pills were out of consideration. What if she puked it out? She wouldn’t eat it even if I ground it into her food.
The next morning, I prepared a noose, tying the rope around the oak beam in the living room. I sharpened the knife. I took Bunda out for her last walk. She smelled daisies, ate grass, rolled in the remains of a dead mouse. Upon returning, I went to bed to rest and regain my strength. I napped for a few hours—even the thought of horrible things ahead wasn’t powerful enough to keep me awake, I knew I counted my last days, maybe weeks. I stood up and found Bunda sleeping on a sofa. I opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out the knife sharpened for the purpose. I sneaked up on her and did it.
The whine, worse than nails scratching the chalkboard, buzzed in my ears long after the act. The floor, my pants and shirt were covered in warm, sickly-smelling blood. It darkened, drenching the material.
It got too much. I started coughing uncontrollably. The buzz and smell drove me crazy. I wished to scream, but no sound came. I was losing my breath, began palpitating, and got woozy. Panic clenched my chest. The last thing I remember was collapsing.
I found myself in a hospital, the Intensive Care Unit, alone, a killer on suicide watch. All I could think about was how to find someone to make this end. My ears still rang with that last whine; the smell of blood stuck in my nostrils. I was wide awake, imprisoned in the nightmare. I miscalculated again. God doesn’t play dice with men like me.
