Books, manuscripts and the long-form work

Benny was old the summer I began telling the truth. Not old in the charming way people say about old dogs who have gone pale around the muzzle, as if age were a little frosting added for effect, but old in the way porches are old after too many storms: bowed in the middle, silvered at the edges, still holding more weight than anyone had a right to ask.

He slept beside my chair while the rain dragged its fingers through the cypress trees and the house breathed its damp wooden breath around us. Every few minutes one of his paws moved in a dream. I liked to think he was running somewhere his body no longer allowed him to go, some enormous green field where his hips did not complain and the air was full of young rabbits making poor decisions.

He still saw enough to find me, though. That was all he had ever really cared to see.