It was a beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains, but there was not much about it that was beautiful for me. I thirsted. I had been traveling on foot away from my town in search of a new life. It was my third day traveling, and the dry air was insulting my sandpaper tongue with every gust. I was hardly sweating because there was nothing to sweat. As I had said, I thirsted, but I also hungered. My mind and my stomach were robbing me of the freedom I had promised myself when I had set out.
But there was someone else there too. Well, I didn’t realize that he was someone when he showed up. He was a dog, but then the dog spoke to me. It wouldn’t leave my side, and it didn’t really tell me what it wanted either. However, it seemed that the dog had always known me. It was for some reason always trailing just beyond sight, and then, when I had plunged myself into the unknown, he decided to make a more formal acquaintance with me. He sure had a lot to say…
“You will die soon if you do not drink,” the mangy dog said.
“I know,” I responded. “I reckoned that when you started speaking to me.”
“You will die because you are a fool. You will die like all the other losers that die due to their foolishness.”
“Is that what you think?” I asked.
“Me? Not me! Isn’t that what you think? You have certainly entertained that notion before haven’t you? You even said it at a bar in Grand Junction when you were a younger and stronger man.”
“Am I no longer young and strong? Is that what you are saying?”
“Is it?” The dog bared his teeth at me.
We continued walking through a forsaken valley between snow covered peaks. I had considered climbing the mountains to reach the snow to eat, but I was too exhausted to make such a trip. Besides… That snow could kill you. Or so I was once told. Full of bacteria or some other thing. It was best I didn’t even try. So, the walk continued. I puppeteered my legs forward one step at a time. I tried to not focus on the condition I was in. It would be best if I just kept walking, but then everytime I finally had some quiet…
“You will die soon if you do not drink,” the dog said.
“Do you think I care? I have nothing to lose.”
“Exactly… You have nothing to lose,” the dog laughed. “Nothing at all. That is exactly why you have everything to lose. Otherwise you will have made nothing of your pathetic life. And that bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“You don’t remember much do you?”
“Is there something I am supposed to be remembering? And why is it that you remember so much about me? I never had a dog. And I am starting to realize why that is the case. Especially if this is what you dogs are always doing.”
“Are you judging dogs now? For what? For knowing something about you? Do you judge people for knowing things now?”
“Maybe I should!”
“And what about all the shit you know? You seem to know a whole lot!” The dog barked. “You seem to know exactly what is wrong with everything, including dogs!”
I didn’t give a response. I don’t have to answer to a dog. But the dog, as normal, didn’t need a response from me in order to say something. And, of course, it was the same something he kept saying over and over again.
“You will die soon if you do not drink.”
“And what about you?” I asked
“Are you worried about me?” The dog looked up to me.
“Of course not, but why are you so worried about me?”
“Oh.. You think I am here to help you?”
“I have no idea why you are here! You just showed up and started talking.”
The dog stopped and sniffed the air.
“There is water over there. I can smell it.”
The dog led me to a puddle of water. It was dark, murky, and looked absolutely disgusting.
“Will you drink it?” the dog sniffed at the water.
“Do I have a choice?”
“There is always a choice. But it is interesting that you don’t think you have one. Is it that you think your life is valuable? That you will plunge your face into that puddle and drink from it simply to live?”
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t. Can you give me a reason why I wouldn’t?”
“If I can remember correctly, you once saw a video of refugees online. The video showed a group of people drinking a puddle much like this one. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely.”
“Oh, vaguely! Well, do you remember vaguely what your comment about them was?”
“I don’t remember random comments I make.”
“Let me remind you then. You had said that only disgusting animals could make themselves so low to drink from a muddy puddle. You had said that a human was more dignified than that, and that a person that would stoop that low had no sense of their worth.”
I looked down at the puddle.
“And now look at you,” the dog laughed. “Just look at you! Dying in this valley like a pathetic, stupid pig or drinking from an undignified mud puddle as a different stupid pig. Oh, how the mighty and proud have fallen!”
The dog approached the puddle and drank from it.
“Do you see what an undignified animal I am?” The dog continued to jeer at me. “And what will your choice be?”
“I will make a choice to live,” I crouched down to the puddle.
“To live? To live! Another rich comment from you, you pig! I thought that life was meaningless to you! I thought that this pathetic world wasn’t worth living in and that your fellow man made it unbearable!”
“And yet, here I am alone in this scorching valley choosing to go another way.”
I leaned down and scooped up the water with my hands and drank the water. It had an odd metallic flavor and the sand gritted my teeth as it flowed by. Though there was nothing pleasant about the water, it was wonderful not to have a bone-dry mouth.
“Hello… Hello,” the dog said.
“Hello?” I looked curiously at the dog.
“Looking at you now, it seems that you have sunken further. Or perhaps something else? What do you think has happened? Have you lost your dignity?”
“I think I have drank some water.”
“That you have,” the dog said. “Will you continue walking now?”
“One more drink,” I said.
This time, I leaned fully forward and put my lips directly to the water. I slurped up as much as I could. A large chunk slipped down my throat, and I coughed and hacked as much of the mud clump as I could.
“We will keep walking,” I said.
“And how do you know this water will not kill you?” The dog asked.
“I do not.”
“And that does not worry you?”
“As you have said, I have nothing to lose.”
“And yet you still have accomplished nothing,” the dog said. “You have been a pathetic waste of space to your fellow man.”
“And if I die in the desert it makes no difference anyways. Besides, what use is space anyways?”
“What do you mean?” The dog asked.
“I may be a waste of space, but does that not mean that space has some use? How does one waste space? Space is simply there.”
“Interesting.”
“As you have said, I have nothing to lose. And isn’t that the best position to be in?”
“I think so,” the dog said. “When you did have something… When you believed you had everything, what good did that do you?”
“It kept me in a box.”
“This trip is changing you,” the dog said.
“I can see that. A trip through any desert can change you. A trip through any valley of death can change you.”
“If you do not eat soon, you will die.”
“Thank you, dog… Is that your name? Dog?”
“Do you think I have a name?” The dog stopped in his tracks.
“Your constant dogging of me has made me think you are someone else.”
“Don’t keep me waiting! Say it!” The dog commanded.
“You are the devil.”
The dog laughed.
“But I also think you are God.”
“Do you think there is a difference?” The dog asked.
“I cannot tell anymore,” I sat on the ground.
“Perhaps who I am just depends on who you are,” the dog sat in front of me. “You have run from me for many years and I was finally able to catch up to you here.”
“And now we are face-to-face.”
“That we are. And now that we can see each other, what is it that you see?”
“A mirror. I see that life is just a mirror,” I said.
“So who does that really make me?” The dog lifted an ear to the sky.
“You are reality.”
“And what is reality?” The dog asked.
“You are me.”
I blinked and the dog was gone. I stood and continued my journey.
“If I do not eat soon, I will die.”