An Old Man and a Dog

An Old Man and a Dog
A narrative about loneliness

Edited by Livingston County Writers & Critics Support Group

An old man walks along the street
The bars pulsate with carnal gaiety
The ambles amidst the crowds of laughing girls and bawdy men
He walks alone unknown, unseen among the spawn of younger ones who emanate from the bars
Like an organic stream from a primal swamp
No one notices as he walks into a diner
Viewing his world through the rim of a coffee cup
The sirens wail and urchins barely grown shout profanities in drunken stupor
The old man walks through an alley and searches for anything that may give him sustenance
A bedraggled dog, lean and brown comes to the old man as he pockets a discarded scarf
The dog snuggles in the old man’s arms
The old man strokes his matted fur
We are brothers of the gutter, this dog and I
And he grasps the dog in an embrace brotherhood
The old man looks about him but sees nothing but decay
There is hardness
Aging women prance about
Their faces chiseled in anger
Their dreams broken
Older men rush about
Their psyches shackled to pecuniary spits
All they strive for is a huckster’s sham
Fading into nothingness consumed
There is a fog that shrouds the pulsating spawn of life that flows through the chasm of the street
The fog in shrouds, the music, laughter, and profanity
When the noises cease, there is loneliness
The streets grow silent as the old man walks to a cluttered room with a bedraggled dog with matted brown fur

Word count: 250