The old dog wakes when the door shuts fast. Click goes the back door, and thump goes the car door, and now the old dog believes he is alone in the house. When the whine of the car backing out of the drive gives way to the crunch of tires on the road, and then to silence, the old dog believes he is alone in the world. Standing next to the door, he folds himself up, lowering his hindquarters gradually, bit by bit, slowly, until his aching haunches have touched the floor. Now he slides his front feet forward, slowly, slowly, and he is down.
A moan begins in the back of his throat, lower pitched than a whine, higher than a groan, and grows. His head tips back. His eyes close. The moan escapes in a rush of vowels, louder and louder and louder, and now he is howling. It is the sound he made in his youth whenever an ambulance passed on the big road at the edge of the neighborhood, but he can’t hear so far anymore. Now he is howling in despair. He is howling for his long life’s lost companion, the dog who died last year and left him to sleep alone. He is howling for his crippled hips, so weak he can hardly squat to relieve himself. He is howling because it’s his job to protect this house, but he is too old now to protect the house. He is howling because the world is empty, and he is howling because he is still here.