The Theory Of Big and Small I: Miss Sarah Walks the Dog

It was a grey day, not much for walking but Sara thought it would be good for her baby. Bertie had been moping around quite a bit lately and had taken to watching her every move under shaggy brows.
“Let’s go then!” She snapped on his leash and took the keys from the wall hook, quietly closing the door behind her. Cold for early September. Not promising.

Looking up at the uncertain color of the gathering clouds she stood with her back against the door on the small cement landing and thought about going back inside for an umbrella. But Bertie resisted and for a moment she felt trapped, the heaviness of shut places, the brief snarl of the terrier, the sky closing in. Thinking about it later she wondered if it had been a warning. A signal like so many she’d ignored in the past. Bending forward a little, just enough to see past the entryway, she looked down the street to the familiar places she’d been with Bertie for six years.

Sara had been walking Bertie the same two-block radius since he’d come home a bright and enthusiastic puppy, all hair and attitude. He’d never lost the enthusiasm of that first time, investigating every tree and blade of grass along the way day in and day out. She loved his curiosity - he never seemed to mind the sameness and Sara thought perhaps he lost his memories each night as he slept and when it came time for the morning walk it was as if everything were new again. It seemed like a blessing.

They started out down the long drive and Bertie strained at the leash nearly pulling her over. He sniffed at the mulberry bush, as was his custom, and then unceremoniously peed on it. Then he stretched, first one back leg, then the other and pawed at the ground in a curiously aggressive way as if he were getting ready for a cock-fight.
“Good dog!”
Instead of turning left this morning, perhaps with a mind to the darkening sky and missed opportunities for shelter, she decided to go right. Bertie seemed nonplussed and sniffed his way along without breaking stride. “So you really have forgotten?” she said, now more convinced than ever that left or right, up or down made no difference.

Sara had never turned gone this particular way before because it led to a main street and she was nervous of the traffic. Bertie was the runt of a terrier litter, all scruffy and stiff with energy, but he was tiny and he had no idea of the power of cars. He just saw them as noisy nuisances, along with children in strollers and anyone on a bicycle. Once they hit the main thoroughfare Bertie was quivering with a mixture of excitement, indignation and fear, bolting sideways when anything came near.

The sidewalk was stained and gummy with lots of small things for a curious dog to investigate so it was slow going. She was beginning to regret taking this diversion and his lead got shorter and shorter as she fought to avoid crashing into an assortment of legs, wheels and other small impediments. Bertie took this as an insult and began to strain, taking out his aggression on anything near. When he started barking at an old woman coming out of the green grocers she hastily pulled him onto the next side street and pulled him up short.
“Bad boy!”
He ignored her for a moment, turning to bark furiously at the apparition with a large shopping bag and she had to drag him behind her, face flaming with embarrassment. Once he quieted down she looked up and around at her surroundings. In all the years she’d lived in this quiet neighborhood in Toronto she’d never come down this street. It loomed with arching trees, gnarled and old, like the tainted cornfields from The Wizard of Oz, beckoning her take a chance toward a distant light. She looked around for a name but the block was very long and there was nothing to help her.

“Come along….” She said smartly, picking up the pace and Bertie marched up ahead of her looking around with interest. With the wind picking up the back of her skirt Sarah tried to figure out how to get back to familiar territory, all the while briskly click clacking down the paved sidewalk in her black pumps. Perhaps a block or two down she could find an alley to cut across….. Nothing seemed right, and although she knew she was not far from home it was like looking at a book upside down and tried to read the familiar…. she cursed her stupidity for losing her way. Where was the weeping willow that took up the whole of the front yard of the Millers, visible forever? And the big lilac bush two doors down at the Simpson’s. She’d lain under it as a child in the summer and the fragrant blossoms had been so heavy the branches had bent to touch the ground. She’d spent hours there on her back hidden from sight, the heady ambrosia all around her like a swaddling blanket. She could feel the milky promise of the early morning sun beginning to turn and the memory of warm, drowsy afternoons was sharper. She hurried along in the memory of the lilacs, waiting for her nearby. Somewhere nearby.

The block was longer than she thought and although Bertie seemed energized she was beginning to feel a mixture of panic and exhaustion. She thought she might have to sit down.

The letter had been sitting on the entry table. Next to the big silver vase kept fresh with garden flowers. They spilled everywhere in a profusion of colors, pink and pale yellow, white, red and pale lavender. But all she saw was the letter, white against the dark wood. Upright and stern, reflected in the surface. One letter real, one ghostly and unreachable.

Bertie froze to standing attention and she almost ran into him.

“Help!”
It was very faint. But desperate. A real cry, not something from a child playing a game. Bertie cocked his head to the right and quivered. “What?” She looked at him in an attempt to ignore the persistent sound.
“Help, please!” The dog looked at her and grimaced. Sara locked eyes with him and they stood motionless for a moment. The next cry was fainter but infinitely more fearful. “Please….!”

“Alright” she said, and turned to look for the source at the nearest house. Bertie took the lead and pulled her toward the walk. “Well, really!” she exclaimed with irritation and yet she let him take her closer.

It was an older house, one of the original tenants of the neighborhood when it had been on a horse farm long before the expanding city had taken over the open land. She’d heard once that Northern Dancer, the most famous Canadian racehorse had once been to stud there before it had been sold and subdivided, but she had no idea if it were true. She had a vague memory of a distant row of white clapboard houses with green trim that she supposed had been for the grooms or trainers. Though small, they’d always been neat, well kept and the developer had saved them so he could give the neighborhood a visible provenance. Somewhere she’d seen a sign hanging between two white posts: Lassiter Farms, est. 1812. Now the little enclave was an anomaly, book-ended by expensive brick homes, four car garages and manicured landscaping.

Bertie continued to urge her up the walk toward one of the clapboard houses. On closer inspection she could see it was worse for the wear. The neighborhood association would be after them soon for letting the values go, she was certain. The porch was a single block of salmon-colored concrete, with spindly wrought iron railing.

Bertie strained. Sarah leaned forward so she could see the entrance facing into the porch on the west end of the house. There was a motley screen with a broken handle door and beyond that, darkness. It was obviously open. Conscious of the now-drawing cold, she knew something wasn’t right but still felt reticent. It was private property, after all. Not her business.

She heard the thump first, then a groan. “Oh hells bells”, she thought, and climbed the steps, Bertie bounding ahead of her, nails scrabbling on the huge steps. She inched forward toward the opening, peering into the dark interior.

“Oh, thank God!” came the voice. A man’s voice. Sara instinctively stepped back, the hairs on her neck rising.

“Please don’t go!” the voice entreated, stronger now. “I can’t get up.” Sara was not convinced. She stood her ground trying to adjust her eyes to the interior, which was shuttered and dim.

“Seriously!” The voice sounded younger than it had at first. More like a teenager. She put one foot on the doorstep, pulling Bertie behind her so’s not to have him jump on the screen door. She saw him then, lying on a beige rug in the middle of the living room. There seemed to be more than one person. Or at least more than one person should be.
She put her hand on the screen door handle. It felt flimsy beneath her gloved hand.

“It’s freezing in here!” Now he sounded like a little boy, but nothing that big could belong to a child. She stepped in, still reigning in Bertie who was hopping around her legs, his nails scratching the hardwood floor.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, knowing it was an obvious question but unsure of how to begin.

“Whadda ya think?” came the reply. She tried to which end was speaking. The mound was so large she couldn’t tell heads from tails. Then he raised an arm. Folds of fat and skin had turned it into a giant, fleshy hammock but it was unmistakably an arm, for the hand, ballooned out like a fan of sausages, waved at her.

The screen door shut behind her with a rusty screech. With a start she let go Bertie’s leash and he bounded off into the dark recesses, the red cord whiplashing behind him. “Bertie!” she cried to his backside.

“Oh, don’t worry, he’s only after the cat’s dish,” said the voice. She inched closer, determined to get a better look. She could see that the shape was wearing a giant cloth of sorts, like a muumuu, all the more incongruous in the winter weather by the bright pattern of parrots and palm trees.

“I’m sorry…..” she began.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” and the hand gestured toward what was obviously the speaking end. Then she saw beneath a series of enormous chins, a tiny face. It was so tiny, so incongruous, so perfectly formed as it was, lost in the giagantic proportion of the rest of him that she was stunned. Only his face showed the person he had or might have been once. A perfectly normal nose, two green eyes, and a full mouth. The face of an aristocrat, almost.

She realized she was gaping. He looked at her steadily and then raised his eyebrows.

"Done looking, are we?"