We were half way between stations before anyone in the carriage noticed the guide dog’s tail was caught in the train doors. It was no one’s fault. The dog’s owner was clearly blind, and what were us passenger supposed to do? Those dogs are so well trained, it just sat there, it didn’t bark or whine. We are always told not to pat guide dogs when they’re working, so we were being well behaved and not patting the noble, golden lab. It just sat there, a look of detachment in its eyes. For all I know that’s what they look like when they’re on duty.
A cry went up, “The dog’s tail! The dog’s tail!”
People crowded.
People yelled.
“The doors wont open.”
“We’ll be at the station soon.”
“Its tail could get caught between the carriage and platform!”
A human cloud of panic, a fog blinding reason.
Trying to help with no clue what to do.
“Call the dog,” the blind woman calmly said.
“What?”
“Call her with food, she’ll wag her tail,” she said.
“What do we call her?”
“You call her Clarity,” answered the blind woman, providing the same service for the passengers the dog provided her.
Instalment Twenty Two
Portrait of a person (woman) as . . .
The thing was she smelled like a second-hand bookshop. Or maybe of that smell clinging to second hand books. A musty smell, stale and lost. Poor ventilation perhaps, forcing odours to eddy and pool, seeping into porous pages. It might come from ageing glue, cracking and splitting the binding. The brittle yellowing paper... who knows. She was a primary school art teacher, with all that glue and paper the explanation might fit, but no.
She was used. Second hand was too kind a description. You can look at a book and tell if it has been read by just one person or by many. She had been used. Used by many and thrown back to the pile. Her once straight, shiny blond hair had lost its lustre, yellowing to straw. It was a mess of cowlicks, dog-eared this way and that. She had topped every man’s list for years, a best seller. They all wanted to get their hands on her, eating her up with their eyes, and she let them. Now weathered and wrinkled, she willed someone, someone to look past her faded youth, the smell and the aura of cheapness that clung to her chest like a necklace.
The thing was she smelled like a second-hand bookshop. Or maybe of that smell clinging to second hand books. A musty smell, stale and lost. Poor ventilation perhaps, forcing odours to eddy and pool, seeping into porous pages. It might come from ageing glue, cracking and splitting the binding. The brittle yellowing paper... who knows. She was a primary school art teacher, with all that glue and paper the explanation might fit, but no.
She was used. Second hand was too kind a description. You can look at a book and tell if it has been read by just one person or by many. She had been used. Used by many and thrown back to the pile. Her once straight, shiny blond hair had lost its lustre, yellowing to straw. It was a mess of cowlicks, dog-eared this way and that. She had topped every man’s list for years, a best seller. They all wanted to get their hands on her, eating her up with their eyes, and she let them. Now weathered and wrinkled, she willed someone, someone to look past her faded youth, the smell and the aura of cheapness that clung to her chest like a necklace.
. . . a second-hand book.
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