I loved my Labrador Max, but I had to kill him. It was for his own good. Cancer, still in its early stages but untreatable. All my praying to god apparently hadn't helped--that's "god" in the lower-case 'g' because I don't worship any Christian deity. I'm a Pan man myself, Pan being an old god, Greek like me. I'm most definitely Greek, even if my name was something stupid like Tim. Dad insisted, just like he insisted I have this worthless farm miles from anywhere. Stupid dad.
Anyway, the doctor told me to have someone put my dog down, but I didn't want him to be alone and frightened in his last seconds. I knew I had to come up with a better way, something that allowed me to be with him when he died--and something that would let him die happy.
Dynamite.
At first I was just going to blow him up while he slept, safe and warm. However, I wanted him to see me when he went, albeit from a safe distance. Whatever I did, I had to stick with the dynamite plan though. I stole it; now I had to use it. I don't know if construction workers call the police when only a single stick of dynamite disappears, and I worried about that every mile of my daily run, thinking it over as my shoes hit the grass of my un-worked but well-mowed farm fields that stretched miles. I was hoping my god Pan would appear beside me and tell me what to do.
That happened in ancient Greece, by the way. When a runner had to travel huge distances as fast as he could to deliver news to soldiers--the act that inspired the later marathon races--he saw someone running alongside him. It was Pan. He talked to the runner and told him to set up worship for him...and the runner obeyed, just like I did five years ago when Pan appeared to me during my first marathon and told me to worship him.
Pan showed up after I tripped another runner on accident; the guy died, trampled. I think Pan knew that I was sorry--I told him so many times in prayer. Actually, I only saw the godly figure out of my peripheral vision, and, while he didn't actually tell me he was Pan, I knew that he was. He knew so much he had to be a god; he said the way you could tell something was divine was if it was exponential. "Humans function at an arithmetic rate," he said to me all those years ago. "The divine and the supernatural function at a geometric rate." I didn't have a clue what that meant, but I knew it was true and wise.
Anyway, he didn't show up that day when I needed to decide what to do with my dog, but at mile four--I've run the marathon twice, by the way--I finally figured it out. I went home and found Max waiting for me by the front window.
I never let him come in through the door, insisting he jump through the living room window...although it's been harder for him to do that lately. I put up my mother's old leather chair to help him, which I think he appreciated, even if the chair is now spongy, rotting down to fungus puffed around rusted springs. Anyway, after I let Max in through the window, I fed him ham and gravy and let him drink bottled water with ice from then on. I knew that he should enjoy his last meals. I watched him and I stabbed the wall with a steak knife to make sure it was sharp. There wasn't much clean wall space let to stab at--too many scratches. I soon stopped and, after I bandaged my hand, I played discus again with my mother's fine but fragile flatware...and then I swept up the shards and watched Max eat, knowing what I had to do.
The next time a thunderstorm was on the horizon, I started a game of fetch with Max. I don't know how much pain he felt from the cancer, but he seemed to be having a good time playing, fetching the stick. That's what I wanted. I was always killing trees and cutting up branches for him to catch. He liked medium-sized sticks better than little or big ones for some reason, wanting something to drag. He even playfully grabbed my pants leg and tried to drag me along a few times. He's a funny dog, one who loves a slow game of fetch. He has never ran when he comes back to me; instead he has always ambled...or at most broke into a trot. He could certainly never run the marathon twice like I had.
I'm sorry to say that part of me was proud I could run farther than Max could. I hated myself for thinking that, and tried to imagine how much more fun it would be if with both ran together, perhaps running across a field to meet each other like separated friends.
I tried to remember that this would be rewarding, even though I knew it would never happen now. Cancer and dynamite had blown up the last chance of a marathon.
Well, I didn't have a choice.
Finally, when he walked back with the stick a third time and excitedly waited for me to take it away and throw it again, I got out the dynamite and tied it to the stick. He stared at me bemused as I lit it, then he went off happily when I threw it hard.
I had no choice. He'd understand.
About thirty feet away he snatched it up and started walking back, dragging the hissing stick in his jaws. I got a little worried then, wondering if I'd timed the fuse right.
A squirrel watched from a cut-up tree a little ways behind him, its tail whipping.
Then Max exploded in a whap of thunder that reduced him to red pumpkin guts and black fur.
The squirrel ran behind the tree trunk.
I was incredibly thankful that there were no neighbors for ten miles. The rainstorm rolled in a few minutes later, so hopefully nobody would be able to tell the difference between distant thunder and distant fragging. I had no choice....
I ran ten miles the next day. I would have run more, but I had to shower so I could make the long drive into work at the city pound. I had trouble controlling the car because I kept wanting to move my legs for a nice run; I hit the gas and brake a lot. Then I took two of my bent and battered steak knives in my left hand and lightly cut at the steering wheel, hoping it wouldn't set off the airbag. During straight stretches of road, I used both hands to stab and drove with my mouth clamped over the wheel like characters do in cartoons.
When I got home at the end of the day I started running again, trying to figure out what to do with the remains of Max. There was so little of him left I didn't see the point in raking him up and burying him. It felt wrong to leave him, but there didn't seem to be any other option. I finally ended up taking the rust-scabbed tractor my dad had willed to me--along with this stupid farm--and slicing up the field where Max had gone to pieces. I hoped the scent of meat wouldn't attract any other dogs.
After that, I started sawing up a few trees so there would be more sticks for Max to play with, even though I knew that couldn't happen anymore. I still had to do it, though. I always cut up trees; it's relaxing. I know that the trees usually die and rot, or have nothing but half-amputated arms without leaves that can't shake in the wind...but there's no harm in it. I need to have my fun.
After a few hours and several mutilated trees, the sky had bloomed orange for dusk. I finally threw the chainsaw into a ditch and went to bed, crying when I realized I couldn't hear Max scratching at the windows anymore. I needed sleep, and I was so out of it that I didn't take off my shoes or dirty clothes when I got into bed.
I'd never hear Max scratch again....
And yet I heard the damn scratching all night long, but it wasn't like dog claws...more like a tree branch on glass. There weren't any trees with branches that close to the house.
I wanted to greet this scratching thing, hug it if it were Max--but I held back. I knew somehow that I shouldn't go out there, however much I wanted to. I lay there, too scared to move, too scared to sleep, watching flies swollen as large as dog ticks buzz on the ceiling. My bedroom window was open and didn't have a screen, but I knew that whatever was outside wouldn't climb in through this window--Max only used the living room window. Wind blew across me all night.
Then, at 7 a.m., I heard the window in the living room explode and the floor of my house rumbled.
I got out of bed and slammed the door, backing away towards the bedroom window.
The door splintered and then burst off its hinges, and before me stood...
...a tree.
At least part of a tree--one of the trees I had sliced up last night. It had no roots and looked like it had torn itself loose from its trunk, its insides hollow with bug damage. I presumed that the hollow pit in the front was its head. Woodpecker sores dotted its legs and body, as well as an occasional smear of moss. It was using four stumped branches as stubby legs.
It stared at me, pointed itself in my direction.
I turned, jumped through the open window.
The tree jumped out of the house after me, tearing chunks out of the surrounding wall, and it bounded up to me, the wood of its body creaking like a rocking chair. It gently grabbed onto my leg by pinching its head-hole, and started dragging me along. It let me go after a while, and I was too shocked to move. Then the tree grabbed me and dragged me around some more...and let me go again. This time I got up and ran hard and fast into the morning dawn.
It's a damned good thing I ran the marathon twice, because now I was running for my life, and I was happy I had kept my shoes on overnight. I'd occasionally look back, expecting to see the tree mere inches away.
It was staying a good distance back, watching. I was too grateful to question why, and kept running.
My god Pan appeared somewhere around mile one. "Disciple..." I heard him hiss.
I kept running, only seeing his shape out of the corner of my eye.
"Sinner..." he said.
I sputtered out protests: "I worshipped, I prayed." He had to know that. I kept running.
"Killer..."
"I never killed anyone." Didn't dare look back at the tree.
"Yes...you have...."
I turned, confused, and looked at the face of my god...
...and saw the fanged, bristle-haired face of a demon staring back. Not Pan. It was a devil, a woman demon, and in an instant of recognition, I knew which one.
"Fury?" I asked, tripping and hitting the ground hard, tearing my knee and seeing spots. A mud-brown grasshopper jumped away from my face.
As I lay panting on the ground and my knee oozed blood, I felt something block the warm sunlight and heard the demon--one of the Greek Furies--whisper in my ear: "Victim."
I knew right then that the Fury would kill me...or drive me insane. That's what the Furies did--punish murderers by driving them insane. I realized that I had indeed killed before, first on accident, then out of mercy. My mind flashed back to the man I had tripped during that marathon, crushed to death between shoes and pavement. He needed to shave--thick stubble.
My mind reeled as I tried to figure all this out. I knew the Fury would drive me insane, but I wondered why she hadn't done so already. It had been years since I tripped the man. She and the other Furies should have made me a lunatic a long time ago.
Then I remembered knife-slashed walls and discus plates, amputated trees and dog confetti.
"Do something sane for once," I muttered.
I rolled over.
The Fury's head bobbed like a balloon as her shoulders shook, bramble-bush hair rustling.
Then she took a few steps back.
I got to my feet and my legs shuddered, but I didn't fall.
The Fury laughed.
Then another sound floated across the fields to me--a bark.
I turned back to my house and saw the tree standing there, still watching, still waiting. And I realized:
Max.
He came back.
The Fury shrieked.
"Do something sane..." I whispered.
I ran, charging towards the reincarnated Max as fast as I could, knowing I had to die as soon as I could, that the Furies would never let me get off easy.
I knew that Max was only playing with me earlier when he dragged me, just like I played with him before the dynamite went off. I also knew that he understood my pain, my situation, just as I had understood his. He was a good dog; we were great friends. I loved him, and he loved me.
Now he wanted to help me.
I saw him start running towards me, move ever so slowly, but it didn't matter that he was slow now. After all, "The divine and the supernatural function at a geometric rate."
The tree was indeed beginning to move faster. Finally it shot towards me at an even greater rate--exponential. There was a sonic boom, and Max struck me. The world spun, red guts and bits of clothes snowing everywhere. Before everything faded black, I tried my hardest to pant out: "Thank you."
