He Thought I Would Come Back

I suppose no one would accuse me of indifference. He was a stray dog. People passed through the nearby residential blocks every day; I was not the only one who saw him. None of them stopped to help him. At least I fed him.

After I first saw him, I began to bring him food every day. That afternoon, I had just finished grocery shopping at Aeon and was riding my electric scooter home when I saw him on a small path near my neighborhood. He was a black dog. I don’t know why I stopped. Maybe it was the wounds covering his body. Big and small, some still wet with blood, some already scabbed over. Probably bites from other dogs. Or his eyes. His tail tucked, something in his gaze I couldn’t name. Looking at him, I was reminded of the dogs I had seen as a child outside a dog meat shop, in cages by the entrance. They had that same look in their eyes. My chest tightened. Or maybe he reminded me of the dog I had when I was ten. When we moved to the town, my parents gave her to our neighbors. When I left, she tried to follow me, but the chain around her neck held her back. She stood there, looking at me, whimpering. I walked away. She was still looking at me. I still think of her sometimes. That chain, less than a meter long. She never ran across the grass again. Never lay on her back at my feet, waiting for me to rub her belly. Her world became that small yard. She walked slowly inside it, like an old person with a cane, each step careful, one after another.

For eight days in a row, every evening, I brought a bag of dog food, a bottle of water, and two bowls to that path. At first he hid in the grass, watching me from a distance. I poured the food into one bowl and water into the other. Then I crossed to the other side of the path and stood under a tree, far from him. I smiled at him. He looked at me, then at the bowls. People say animals can sense kindness. I walked away slowly. When I turned back, he was already devouring the food. It was late October. The mornings and evenings were cold. I should have prepared a cardboard box for him, or at least left him some old clothes.

You don’t see many stray dogs in Guangzhou. They say it’s because the public security bureau organizes teams to patrol the streets and capture and relocate them. The nearest holding facility was less than an hour’s drive from my home. I could have called the police, asked them to take him in. Maybe that would have eased my conscience.

But it was already too late. I told myself someone must have taken him away. That he had been hurt.

I shouldn’t have hesitated. I kept wondering whether I should take him home. On the third day, he dared to come closer to me. On the fourth, he wagged his tail and let me touch his head. Even after everything the world had done to him, he still trusted people. He would have been a gentle, obedient dog. He would have known how to cherish a home. If I had taken him in, he would have been my most loyal companion. I wouldn’t have had to come back every day to an empty apartment. He would have been there when I returned from work, sat with me while I ate, walked with me in the evenings, slept beside me at night. We could have been happy together.

I should have decided sooner. If I had acted at once, if I hadn’t let him down, he would be here now, tongue out, grinning at me. But he disappeared. Next to the bowls, there was only a darkened patch of blood. I heard the security guards had driven him away with sticks. I heard someone had complained. I heard they were afraid he might have rabies. He waited on that path every day for me to come back. He knew I would. He thought I cared about him. 

He thought we would become a family.