“The compact silence as I draw near to the city when the streets seem that much closer, the sky that much lower and it feels like I’m wandering through the empty rooms of some vast interior space. I miss the whiff of danger on the night air, the unidentifiable shadows – is that a tree or a man in the distance? Is that a nun’s body floating downriver or a billowing length of riverweed? I miss the way the sounds in my head are gradually softened by the beat of my footsteps. And the sense that I am... the one in control somehow. The dog beside me, toddling along; squirting, squatting, sniffing: undemanding and yet very much alive. I miss moving with him through the various shifts of darkness. But – by order of the vet – the dog needs to take it easy now. Exercise should be gentle; damp and cold, at all costs, avoided. ‘He’s an old guy,’ was how he put it, as he chucked the dog under his silvering chin, ‘and us old guys, we need to take it handy – don’t we, fella, hey? Don’t we now, don’t we?’ The dog, I believe, is relieved.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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