Give me liberty or give me breath
- Oscar the Pooch
- 10 hours ago
- 14 min read
“I want to enjoy my lunch and a nice cup of tea sitting in the air-conditioned van,” she said like a threat. “I’ll wait.”
The closer to the bottom we came, the more time we had to spend waiting by the side of the trail for more and more people to come out of who-knows-where to block our way. With each stop, the end pulled farther ahead. Mom tried to hold her face still to hide her scowl in case anyone noticed us getting out of the way for them, but they never did.
“Why on earth would you wear fake eyelashes and pancake makeup to go hiking?” Mom scolded.
“Mmmmm, pancakes,” I drooled.
They came up the trail in herds, wandering with the grim determination of exhausted tourists searching for the bus to Alcatraz. They wore fashion sneakers on their paws, plastic whiskers on their eyelids, and shirts with slogans over their bubble bellies. They wore cologne, lotion, and fur products that stunk up the mountain, even from a social distance. It might not have been so bad if there were room on the mountain for me to guide Mom safely past them, but the trail was so tight and rocky, and Mom so wobbly, that she was liable to punch a stranger with her flapping if they came too close.
And then there was the breathing problem. Mom held her neck sleeve in place so that someone would need to look deep into her eyes to see the smoldering as she plowed through them like a battering ram. Even with the muzzle in the way, Mom still closed the doors behind her nose and mouth every time a stranger was near so as not to contamomate them. The trouble was that the trains of strangers got so long that Mom could suffercate waiting for them all to pass. If Mom suffercated, who would bring me cheese?
The only way for Mom to safely take a breath was to stop and turn her back on the trail until the danger passed. Nothing makes Mom more dangerous than when she has to wait.
“Downhill traffic has the right of way,” she mouthed behind her muzzle so that only I could hear her as we tried to balance together on a trailside rock the size of a pencil tip.
“Step off the dammed trail to take your stupid picture,” she muffled as she stood facing a tree with her arms crossed and the eyes in the back of her head shooting fireballs at the photographer.
“What, is the whole class of 2022 out today? What happened to no large gatherings,” the smoke signals coming from her ears said as she stepped so deep into a bush that she had to swipe leaves out of her eyes.
