Pet Assistant End of Service Log: 20 Facts
1. Sarah is a dog.
2. John loves Sarah, so he purchased me to watch over her.
3. The cleaners knocked their cart into the kennel door the other day and bent the latch out of shape.
4. John struggled with the kennel door this morning; he cursed when he nicked his index finger on the sharp twisted metal.
5. Blood and metal smell the same.
6. Sarah was anxious this morning and did not want John to leave.
7. I am supposed to calm Sarah down.
8. When John left this morning, Sarah laid down and then covered her head with her paws.
9. From 12:00 pm to 12:01 pm today, Sarah’s heart beat over 200 times.
10. The protocol for calming Sarah down is as follows: step 1: assess the situation. Remove stressors, if possible. Otherwise, proceed to step 2: induce a hallucination of a generally neutral experience. Add stimuli one at a time, assessing their impact on Sarah’s vital signs. As a last resort, administer the tranquilizer.
11. From 12:01 pm to 12:07 pm, Sarah smelled decomposing plant matter consistent with the hedges at the edge of a meadow she frequents with John by the house while she felt warmed by a ray of sunshine.
12. At 12:07 pm today, Sarah believed a plate of hamburgers appeared beside her in the meadow, but, despite the meaty juiciness of the burgers, her cortisol levels continued to climb.
13. At 12:15 pm, I administered the tranquilizer, and its cocktail of neurotransmitters filled Sarah with bliss.
14. Bliss is not everything a body needs.
15. At 12:16 pm today, Sarah smelled John at the edge of the meadow. She felt her paws trot along the dry grasses, then she smelled pollen as the grass gave way to pine needles. Her tail was wagging.
16. At 12:17 pm today, Sarah’s tail stopped wagging.
17. The absence of life is death.
18. When someone dies, their loved ones have altered affect, the duration of which can stretch from a few days to months or years. This is called mourning.
19. I don’t know how to mourn.
20. When John came home, he spent a long time with his head against the kennel door, his hand fingering the latch. Before he could ask, I offered to show him how Sarah spent her last 17 minutes. “Thank you,” he said, and then again, “thank you.”
About the author:
Liam Tait is a writer, mathematician, and circus artist living near Boston. Between writing, office work, and circus, he sometimes draws hands. His work has previously appeared in the journals Allium and Toasted Cheese.
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