Every breath you take
- Oscar the Pooch
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Now I was really concerned. “Are you okay, Mom? It sounds like you’re saying that other people make life better, not worse.” “Remind me I said that in a few months when we’re stuck in a traffic jam and I have murder in my heart.”
We passed one hiker, and then another on our journey to the top of the hill. Since the trails were usually empty, Mom never wore a neck sleeve on our runs around My Hometown, so her naked face was out for all the world to see. Instead, she took a deep gulp of air each time we approached someone and held it so no boogies could sneak in or out. Once they were behind us, Mom kept holding her breath for a count of three before letting it out like a tire with a slow leak to keep her boogeycloud as lean as possible.
“Sheesh, it sure is tough to pass someone going uphill these days,” she gasped.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to wear a muzzle?” I said.
The muzzle trend had really caught on since I saw my first wandering veterinarians in Arizona. These days, people were so into the craze that they teased viciously when some poor slob showed their whole face in public. Mom would wear her muzzle when she went somewhere without me, like the grocery store, but she still resisted running with a neck sleeve like she resisted pants with inflexible waistbands.
The smile fell off of Mom’s face and lines dug into her forehead at the idea of being muzzled. “You’ve seen me sweat. I’ll drown if I run with a mask, and the gaiter is useless if it keeps falling off my face.”
“A muzzle is better than suffercating.”
“The mask is meant to block my breath, but there’s nothing to block if I don’t breathe. If I’m not putting anyone in real danger and they still get scared, that’s their problem. Anyway, the CDC says I don’t have to wear a mask outside,” she said in a so there tone.
“Your face scares people when they see-dee-see it without a muzzle,” I reminded her. “People can’t see you holding your breath. The muzzle is like a flag that says Friend. Without it, you might bark at a could-be Friend or play with a frenemy by accident.”
I’d been wearing bandanas for the same reason since long before humans adopted the trend. There are a lot of silly people out there who are afraid of dogs, so to set strangers at ease, beefy loudmouths like me need to dress nicely to show that we’re civilized. It’s impossible to be scared of a dog with flowers on his bandana, no matter how big he is or how loud he barks.
“Masks don’t just block germs. They hide microexpressions and muffle the subtle tone shifts that tell us how we affect other people’s feelings,” Mom said, hiding her doubt behind big words and a know-it-all tone. “When people see a mask instead of a face, they reduce an entire person down to a threat. It’s easy to forget that there are real people who may be warm, kind, funny, and interesting behind those masks. Forgetting how to empathize is a kind of sickness too, you know.” She gulped gently for new air, trying not to suck in the exhaust of someone else’s boogeyworkout. “Other people can wear masks if it makes them feel better, but now that people are coming out of their houses, I kind of want them to see that I’m more than just a disease vector. Maybe it’ll help them remember that we don’t have to disagree about everything.”
“I thought that being right was the only thing you liked about talking to other people,” I said. “You can’t correct people without disagreement.”
“Yeah, but how can you disagree with someone’s face? I can’t help my face.”
“They can’t tell whether it’s loaded with boogeyvirus just by looking at you. They think you’re trying to kill them.”
“Pointing a smile at someone is different from a gun, isn’t it? Why should I hide just because someone else finds my face upsetting? What’s the point of a concealed-carry smile?”
“What if the face is scowling?” I asked, looking at a woman stalking up the trail with her muzzle pointed directly at us.
Mom sucked in a big huff of air, puffed out her cheeks, and puckered her lips as if she were running underwater. With her boogey-hole pointed away from the stranger as we passed, Mom didn’t see the woman stop to glare at us with a look that made my hackles stand on end.
“MASK?” the Scowl barked in a voice like a stab wound.
“I was holding my breath, My Friend,” Mom shouted over her shoulder, but not so forcefully that the germs in her shout would hit the lady. She held up her paw in a gesture that could have been a hello/goodbye wave and could have been a sign for the woman to shut up her own face.
“Mmmf marumf arglebargle,” the Scowl shouted through her muzzle, but she had already become part of the background. Mom didn’t see a reason to waste her breath re’splaining why her face wasn’t a weapon and kept running.
I looked back to make sure the Scowl was shouting something like That’s a great idea! I kept running with my nose facing my butt so I could keep an eye on the Scowl for signs of attack. Mom must not have been paying attention to where my face was facing, because I felt a tug on the leash and turned around in time to see her hit the ground like a chopped-down tree.
“Duck!” She and the Witch both smeared their faces into the dirt and gravel. Mom bounced right up and started running again without even looking down to inspect the Witch’s scarred face or the blood on her own elbow and knee.
“Snotty, snippy, toldja so!” the Scowl shouted.
Mom yanked the leash to tell me to ignore the Scowl, but then it occurred to her that she’d actually heard the words this time. She poked a finger in her ground-side ear where the Witch’s voice was missing. The kibble Mom wore in her ears to block out everyone but the Witch must have fallen out when she landed. When we turned around to find it, the Scowl was still standing a short sprint away and yelling advice on how Mom should live her life.
“I’d rather you not come any closer, My Friend,” Mom snarled, holding up a muddy hand to tell the fink to stay.
“I’m wearing a mask!” the Scowl yelled.
“That’s not why I don’t want you coming closer,” Mom grumbled. She spotted the ear kibble in the dirt, and swooped down to retrieve it, turning tail in the same movement and running away as fast as she could.
“See? Sharp teeth aren’t the only dangerous thing about faces,” I lectured when we’d put a few turns between us and the Scowl. “Sometimes they cut with insults. Insults that aren’t true cut the deepest. Especially when they’re loud.”
“Maybe some people do need muzzles in public, even if they’re outside,” Mom said, taking my wisdom as her own.
“The muzzle doesn’t just keep a dangerous dog from biting,” I reminded her. “It’s also a warning to keep your distance.”
“Exactly. Just because some dogs need muzzles, there are people who assume that all dogs will just eat them on sight,” Mom plagiarized. “We’re outside. We were only within 6 feet of her for about a second, and even if I had been breathing,—which I wasn’t—I would still need to actually be infected for her to get sick. Statistically, she’s more likely to get hurt by a tree falling on her head.”
“Right! She acts like a mask is a badge and she’s on patrol,” Mom agreed, missing the point. “Like the rules themselves are what stops danger.”
Mom’s smile was gone and the lines above her eyebrows hardened for good as we ran the rest of the way on high alert for more Simons. She stayed on high alert, even after we’d finished running and the scabs from her run-in with the Scowl had hardened and healed.
I was starting to despair of ever making new Friends again.
Stuck houses around the world had more than a hunerd days notched on their walls by the time Independence Day rolled around. I, for one, was getting pretty sick of independence. Because of the holiday, nobody would be checking on us for four whole days, and Mom needed something to keep her out of mischief.
“Why are you looking at all those places six hours away when it only takes three hours to drive to Tahoe?” the Witch tempted.
Mom fell right into her trap. “I bet it won’t be that bad this year, since nobody’s traveling.”
I tried to remember a place so close that was worth the drive. “Which one’s that?”
“You know: at the end of that horrible road where people don’t know how to drive,” Mom prodded, “so they go 20 miles an hour below the speed limit?”
I tried to remember, but the spell had gotten me, too.
“You remember: where we can never find parking, even if we arrive at sunrise?” Mom hinted.
I hmmmmed, but my memory was stuck.
“… the place where all of our friends’ bosses have been hiding in their vacation homes since April?”
The only boss-castle I could think of belonged to Boss Charming. “We’re going back to Utah?”
“No.” Mom wagged her head. “You know, the place where we spend half the time stepping off the trail to get out of people’s way, and the other half stepping off the trail to get around people who won’t get out of our way?”
