Mark Antony Rossi’s poetry, criticism, fiction, creative nonfiction and photography have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Anak Sastra, Bareback Magazine, Black Heart Review, Brain of Forgetting, Deep Water Literary Journal, Dirty Chai, Enclave, Expound, Farther Stars Than, Flash Fiction, Gravel, Indian Periodical, Japanophile, Journal of Microliterature, Kulchur Creative Journal, Mad Swirl, On The Rusk, Purple Patch, Scrivener Creative Review, Sentiment Literary Journal, Snapdragon, Syzygy Poetry Journal, The Sacrificial, Toad Suck Review, Transnational, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Wild Quarterly and Yellow Chair Review. He is the Editor in Chief, Ariel Chart
Kind
I’m not an animal hater. I got a dog, two cats and two goldfish.
But I’m still deeply suspicious of people who turn pets into family members. I wonder how much humanity has disappointed them. Are they more disposed to be humane towards animals than their own kind?
I am not trying to start a fight. But I don’t give a hoot about a stray cat when homeless vets sleep under a leaky bridge. Not too impressed with blowhards blabbing about human rights abroad while stepping over vagrants to rescue Taco Bell dogs here in the homeland.
If I hear another lecture regarding lizards I going to beat a hippie with their nasty hemp sandals until they declare hygiene is not against their religion. And by the way I don’t give a flying frack about frogs in the ecosystem. And no, plants don’t have feelings. I do you dickheads.
But let me share this episode. When I was young I dogsitted for a woman so darn old she left her purse in the Garden of Eden. She said “take care of Alice for me. I love her more than my last husband.”
Which didn’t surprise me. She let the dog pee on her husband’s plot. And once Alice broke a frame with old guy’s photo in it. None of this raised her blood pressure. The dog could do no wrong,
This is probably where I started to see animal obsession as a replacement addiction like religion or alcohol. Hamsters are not the only creatures running on that wheel. People become puppets to their own insecurities.
The tell-tale sign of that ancient woman is she died and left her proceeds to the animal shelter and Alice. Her dog got $50,000 her grown children with children of their own got nothing. Alice is running around in the park right now oblivious she’s a bit player in a human drama meant to exclude humans.
I volunteered one day to walk the dog and promptly drove her to the old lady’s plot. Alice left a heaping pile of steamy crap right in front of the tombstone. Was it justice or just jaded junk? I don’t know and neither does the dog. That’s the point. Animals are animals. They should never be mistreated. They are not substitutes for the broken hearted. They are not surrogates for lost loves. They are animals. Be kind. But wake the hell up!