away the dog’s life, but the consent forms jerkily dances, hovering in the air between the once-couple like a rickety plane swinging erratically in turbulence. Their jerky voices are like two people walking right towards each other in a crowded mall, awkwardly and indecisively shifting their weight to either side to avoid a collision. The woman sounds breathless and exhausted. “… Uh–“ “No, you. It’s… he’s yours–“ “It’s fine. You can –“ “Oh. OK.” The man’s voice is frightening. The quiet, hoarse sounds coming out of his tight mouth are devastating. He gives the clipboard a small tug, not out of pushiness, but because he must; someone has to just make the decision to walk left or right. He is trembling. She is trembling. The man does not read the document; death is not so complex, but his vision blurs as he is swept by a flush, like a little boy with a crush on his older sister’s friend. The same butterflies are in his stomach, but the circumstances have changed; they beat their wings for the signing away of three lives, not by childhood innocence. He pens a signature that does not match the back of his Visa, or any piece of legible writing, for that matter, but he is desperate to get his former life’s death sentence to the vet-God’s almighty hands. “I’ll give you a minute to say goodbye.” They wish the vet hadn’t left the room, the woman especially. Trying to keep her extreme discomfort in check, the woman stares at the walls of the office. They are like those in the room of a medicallyobsessed teenage girl, with posters of anatomy coating them, as if a canine liver were the newest teen heartthrob and unhealthy gums were badass on a popular television show. The posters, however, are in a room harbouring bigger problems than slightly obsessive med-school aspirations of a sixteen year-old; they scream life altering things: “… Slut... Can’t we just do this one thing together... We’re done. We’re so done… But what about the dog... I don’t know, put him down … So that’s it? We’re not even going to talk about this… No. We’re not.” The walls are reenacting the last time they were alone together: their fight that day. THE OPUS | 81
The Opus 2010
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