It was a bit chilly and yet not too cold to sit on a bench in Hyde Park. Autumn had clearly begun his reign. Withered leaves were casually being blown along the alleyway by a light and chilly breeze. Bits of olive-green colour were coming off the bench at some spots and dry leaves lay scattered on the wooden planks.
The park was not deserted yet. Dog-Walkers strolled down the alley, sportspeople were gasping by and children soared past on coloured bikes. A woman with a huge dog, golden coloured and almost the size of a pony, came close to my bench. With a good-natured look in his huge brown eyes the dog began sniffing around – here and there – as if he was looking for something that he himself couldn’t quite describe.
Then, without any ado, he walked towards me calmly, looked at me and in an instant sank his teeth into my right arm. Blood gushed out of my jacket’s sleeve and through the small holes the dog’s teeth had ripped in my jacket. The dog’s jaws constantly tightened, slowly working their way towards my bones, while his eyes retained the same calm, docile expression as before. I sat there still and looked at him in bewilderment. More and more blood was dripping down my jacket, over the arm and on the bench, now partly covering the leaves and the grey spots where the paint of the bench had come off.
Suddenly with a light crack my arm broke and the dog ran off with it. I could see my hand and forearm dangling from his mouth like one of those wooden sticks that dogs always like to play with. I watched him for a few moments more, until he had disappeared between the bleak trees, before I got up, leaving a scattered trail of blood behind as I exited the park.
Daniel Schulze
3 comments:
Nice little piece - I like the turning point very much! And the contrast between the violence and the calmness in the dog's eyes. Some good phrases too ('gasping by', 'soared past on coloured bikes').
Am not too sure about the beginning though. 'Autumn had clearly begun his reign' is a bit clichéd and fulfils no function in the evocation of the setting, to which all the other details are working. Those impressionistic snippets are nice, but I'm always a bit uncomfortable when encountering them. Somehow too easy, to one-dimensional. Reminds me of what Kostya says about Trigorin in the Seagull: the moonlight on the broken edge of a bottle is enough to create the impression of an evening. I don't think it is - it should be something more personal, more complex in its signification, otherwise mind and ear just pass over it.
Personal opinion, but maybe worth thinking about it. It's at least something I struggle with - never give into the facile.
Funny, isn't it? But quite freaky too... It makes me think about the relationship between man and machine. Because it takes place in a park and that the "enemy" is an animal, you cannot see the machine: it has become a part of everyday life, as culture has become a second nature (whatever claim Rousseau). It makes me think about a machine because the dog has no expression: violence has been naturalized. And at the end man seems to be a robot himself, despite the blood: he can take off his arms like a puppet.
I agree with Jens on the one-dimensional and very immediat quality of the piece, but I think it makes the absurdity of the situation even more striking.
This reminded me slightly of Neil Gaiman's short stories (I don't know if you like his work but I do so this is meant as a compliment). The perverse being described in somewhat cool and totally realistic terms. However I would say that's only true for your piece after you have finished 'setting the scene' as it were, wherein I would have to agree with Jens and say you have used some cliche. But I wondered whether you were doing this on purpose to contrast with the action that followed - almost the idea of anything benign suddenly being able to change tact without warning, like both the dog and what's happening in the story.
Well worth considering though, certainly interesting.
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