11:23 p.m. - 2007-01-22
feral dogs they roam in search for home
go to dictionary.com, lookup the meaning of "feral" and you'll get the phrase:
a pack of feral dogs roaming the woods.
which in itself is quite a beautiful thing.
a nomadic gang of misfits, dogged lives born from the streets and gutters, they forage through dumpsters in back alleys, occasionally squabbling and fighting over scraps, yelps and warning snaps at each other's necks and legs, but quarrels forgotten in the cold night as they huddle together for warmth and sleep dreaming of summer grass and butterflies, toys to chew on, water sprays from sprinklers to taste, chasing squirrels up trees for fun... and there behind the discarded flattened cardboard boxes, they lie together, a cosy pile of fur and wet noses, little legs giving little forgetful kicks, and occasional growls of a bad dream about teaseful sparrows.
one early morning in the school holidays, i met a pack of feral dogs, roaming a grass plain, in the middle of nowhere, where low-rise factories and misc workshops spread for some distance in tidy rows.
they stroll about in a single file, zig-zagging haphazardly across the field of patchy knee-length grass. the way they walk, their paws paddle over the ground, their haunches bobbing and heads nodding, it reminds me of a cartoon with pluto (the disney dog) in it. There is an animated movement in life itself that is very satisfying to gaze at and ponder.
one dog near the back stopped for a while as the rest trekked on, then his friend turned around and walked back to him, sniffing his nose, and trying to find out what's why. Heads together low, they commiserated over the ground for a while, like a discussion about something.
a few seconds passed.
then their heads came up, they returned to life again and paddled quickly to rejoin the pack, in the direction of the mythic woods.
