November and December should be fused into one Pangea Month. It might make these two months make more sense. They’re fake months where you put off commitments, busy work, exercise, laundry, doctor’s appointments. Leave it till January. These are 8 weeks of bed head and guilt. Hot naps that make you feel worse. Pacing. Bad skin. Hiding in bathrooms. The great ruse of the holiday season. It’s not even winter yet. We pretend we’re not a Pagan nation but the President pardons a turkey every year, released into the world as a display of mercy. A fowl spared from slaughter, exalted to a deity.
With the wave of his hand, the President frees the turkey. Cameras flash. No one speaks. The turkey stands there for a moment, looking around at the reporters; the shuttering cameras.
“I just go now?” It asks.
“Yes,” the President says.
The turkey nods, and walks off the podium before stopping.
“What am I supposed to do for work, though?” The turkey asks.
“I don’t fucking know,” the president says. “Do I look like a fucking job recruiter? Jesus fucking Christ.”
The turkey shakes his head and is quiet for a moment, before looking back up at the president.
“What about Paramount Plus?” the turkey asks.
“What about it?” the president asks.
“Is it worth it?” The turkey asks. “Like, as an app, I mean.”
“I guess so,” the president says.
The turkey nods and walks off, its talons clacking against the marble.
The turkey enrolls in night school, and eventually gets an IT job at a company in the Virginia suburbs. One day during lunch with a coworker, the turkey gets hit by a car while crossing the street. After a month in the hospital, the turkey works remotely, doing physical therapy three times a week, which is paid for out of pocket, because the turkey’s health insurance hadn’t kicked in yet. Unable to afford it long term, the turkey has to stop physical therapy and eventually gets addicted to opiods and gets fired from the IT job. The turkey dies of a fentanyl overdose six months later.
***
My dog Mango has been sick since Halloween. It started with sneezing — my husband and I figured it was allergies from pre-wildfire dryness, until it turned into a cough that turned into retching that turned into throwing up foam. Foam! It felt unholy to see foam. I need therapy after seeing the foam. I have cried almost every day. My dog, the chimney sweep, struck down by whooping cough. It felt like a conspiracy to punish my husband and me by infecting our dog. Then we learned about the mystery canine respiratory illness, first in Oregon and California. Now it’s everywhere. A souped up Kennel Cough. They think it’s a bacteria that is found in most dogs, formerly benign, now mutated by whatever factor — COVID isolation, climate change, etc —and is now besieging dogs. My dog, included. He has been reported to LA County Public Health as an official case. Some dogs have died, but most of them simply endure a monstrous cough. Remember when a year would go by without a new mystery respiratory illness? We were so young.
Now Mango sounds like an old man when he coughs. A veteran of war. Charred and knowing. It feels wrong coming from him. Uncanny. Satanic. Whatever apocalypse began in the last few years, it is now coming for our dogs. Take us, but spare them. Mango is on the mend, though. He’s been X-rayed and examined by kind Veterinarians—one was a kind hot man about my age with shockingly perfect, non-veneer teeth. He told us Mango was OK. Mango’s heart is fine—good even, and his lungs aren’t flooded. No pneumonia. All we can do now is wait for it to run its course, probably through the rest of this holiday season. One long Tuesday afternoon.
Last night, I brought Mango to the dog run on the side of my building. My neighbor and her elderly Pug entered, and I told her what Mango was sick with. She scooped her dog up and power-walked out, thanking me for telling her before disappearing into the night. I guess we should get Mango a bell to wear so the other dog owners in our building know when he’s coming. He’ll clear dog runs and hallways. Iconic, really. This mushy, snorting Leper.
I’ve grappled with my own mortality though this. I’ve made it about me. I’ve thought about how fragile I am. I’ve been relieved to know my instinct to not have children is correct. I’ve wondered if I am codependent with Mango, too hovering and fixated. I posted about his sickness on Instagram, letting people know what to watch out for. I worried that I sounded too alarmist. I worried that people thought I was one of those psycho, Munchausen-adjacent dog people. I just know that an attack on dogs is an attack on all of us.
We coupage Mango twice a day; we steam the bathroom and lightly slap his chest with cupped palms, breaking up the mucus in his lungs. When he coughs, you know it’s working. I try to make the patting rhythmic. It feels spiritual, like a ritual. Shamanic, maybe. Exorcising some evil, liquid entity from this perfect creature. Banishing it back to its dark realm. We drum our sick dog to see the future in the steam.
Poor baby. We have a cavalier as well, a tricolor, and they are the sweetest, gentlest but also most helpless little dogs. All heart and pure soul. I hope Mango’s recovery is steady and thorough. ❤️
Carey ❤️❤️❤️❤️ thoughts and prayers for Mango!!!!