Stray dog

I met someone today. At first glance I thought he had a place, belonged to someone. But he seemed bored and followed me like I was someone who had direction, knew where she was going. Today I did. I was headed on a vigorous walk to the ocean, exactly one mile from my house. First, a short jog down a busy street, then a left turn to a residential road which leads directly to the ocean. After getting a safe distance from what I thought was his home, I realized he was still following me. I shooed him, told him to go home, thought about throwing a pebble at him so he would get the idea. I didn't. He didn't. We continued along the road to the ocean. I was mildly annoyed to have a hairy, slobbering companion along for my solitary trek. I watched as he ran through the dune grass, smelling, searching. He ran wide side circles around me, then abandoned me for a few minutes only to return as if he knew me intimately, like I had thrown a thousand balls for him in the past, out, retrieve, then out again. As we approached the dunes leading to the ocean, I began to feel like he could belong to me, maybe he had been mine before and we had found each other again. I started to glance over to him, eager now, to keep pace with him.We moved in a sort of random, but methodical synchronization. Clip, rustle, clip. He kept coming back. Once we arrived on the beach he took off. Chased birds, ran into the waves as I walked along the water's edge. I sort of forgot about him for a while, he was out of sight, I was focused on my music, on the roar and pull of the ocean. He seemed relieved to have arrived at our unplanned destination, as if instead of just meeting and following one another, we had woken up together that morning and made plans to walk towards the ocean, knowing we would arrive later that day, as expected. He eventually returned from running in the waves. He was soaking wet and moving past me, eyeing something with interest. I looked to my left and saw what he was after. He began rubbing up against an object, hurling his body against it repeatedly. It was a very large, dead seagull. My first reaction was one of horrified disgust, I gagged and yelled for him to stop, as if he was mine. As if I would be the one to clean up his body, the one to pick out the bones and torn tissue from his fur, as if any of this was my problem. He was acting crazed, excited and obsessed with this dead bird. I had never seen such enthusiasm for death before. He rubbed his body against the dead bird again and again, like he was trying to uncover something familiar, something recognizable in the feathery rotting mass on the sand. I was fascinated to see such passion for something utterly dead. Life and death colliding in a sort of frenzy, a sort of mind blowing moment for him, and for me, a voyeur. I understand it was likely the fetid smells he was revelling in, the rankness of animal decay. I was blown away for a moment at this collision, of life seeking death and life intensifying after his discovery, or so I imagined, honestly how do I know what he has known before today, we just met. To know something intimately, smell beyond what makes another gag and turn their head to the side in disgust, one can walk away with new found energy, perhaps more alive than before. I am walking away now from my own fecundity, moments of spiritual death that I realize have left more than a faint aroma on my body, indeed have lifted me up, made me smell my own fear, gag with nervousness and come out breathing, come out living, laughing. My moments are tangible, body enough to rub against, abrasive and pungent enough to turn heads. Deeply. Movingly. Life for me is hard core, body and rank. It is rubbing up against the raw stink of whatever. Change, risk, fear, passion, whatever is going through my moment, rub it. I want to get as close as I can, get some stink on me. Take it home. The dog was mine now. He followed me home, past the house where we met and straight to my front door. Shoo dog. Go home I said. Instead I put out a bowl of food.