PAD CHALLENGE, April 26

Prompt: "Miscommunication"

CONFERENCE
It was Fall semester, near
Christmas, and the rain
was turning to icethat was going tick-tick-
tick on the windows.

He was telling me about the day
his dog was hit by a car
and the dog was not
dead, but suffering.
I only wanted to get home,
which was forty miles
away on country roads
untouched by salt
trucks or plows.

He was telling me how he
had to do the manly thing.
Only now do I realize the
importance of the story.
He had taken the gun from its
proper place.
The dog could not have understood
what this farm boy
was there to do.

He was there to shoot her,
he was telling me, and she licked his damned hand.
We say our animals understand us.
She could not have understood
why the gun was about to go off, and
it was because he loved her.
I only wanted to go home.
Ice hit the windows.
For a moment that was the only sound.