It was so quiet in Ray’s house he could hear the popping of bubbles in his seltzer can and the hot water boiling in the radiators. It was so quiet in the house he even heard the houseplant squeak as a new leaf inched closer to unfurling from the base. A swift gulp from the can unfroze the stillness of the room. A neighbor’s window illuminated for a moment, then went out. There was a limp comfort in knowing there were others so close.

 

“I’m in a rut.” Ray suddenly spoke. The dog lifted her head swiftly, attentively. They locked eyes and Ray half frowned. “Ya know what I mean?”

 

“I don’t,” said the dog, her eyes never leaving his.

 

“I’m just sort of…in my feelings right now, ya know?” Ray picked the seltzer can up and gulped it again. It sizzled unsatisfactorily in his mouth.

 

“I don’t know what feelings are.” the dog stated bluntly. Her eyes bore into him through the momentary silence.

 

“Feelings are uh, like a state of being. Like, what you are at any given time.”

 

“Ohhh, like being hungry.” She added quickly, “Are you hungry?”

 

“No, it’s about emotions. Like happy or angry.”

 

“Ok, well which of those are you?”

 

“I’m neither,” Ray drained the last of the seltzer and held the empty can up for idle scrutiny. The final few drops of bubbly water burped their last gasps of carbonation as he set it down.

 

“Ok so you aren’t hungry or happy or angry…” She hadn’t shifted a muscle since he spoke, a little bit too ‘at attention’ for Ray’s liking. “What feelings are you?”

 

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked around the room as he answered, “I’m just not feeling great or… uh I think…well I think I’m just burned out or whatever I guess. At a low ebb. Running on empty.” Ray winced at the clichés even as he deployed them defensively.

 

The dog finally broke eye contact and laid her head on the couch. “Ok well, sounds like you’re hungry to me.”

…

 

Ray reread the text chain just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He was prone to doing that, reading messages too fast and missing key elements. He parsed the blue and gray bubbles one at a time.

 

Long story short I’m apologizing to mum/ Are you sure?/ Yes because I want to keep the peace and let everyone be happy for Christmas/ Are you sure putting yourself in a room with her is going to be “peaceful?”/ Ray the responsibility of what to do about this has been killing me and I don’t care anymore. I told dad I would apologize but not mean it/ What did he say about that?/ He just nodded/ I’m not criticizing you I just don’t see how this helps/ Dad told me that mum pretty much still thinks this is my fault and I’m not going to get what I want out of this so I should just say I’m sorry and get over it/ He said that?/ Not exactly. I’m tired/ I wish you weren’t in this position/ Me too

 

They went on like that. Ray sighed and pondered the existence of cruelty. He flicked his eyes up from his phone and to the dog. Her face was buried in the blanket, eyes shut, already asleep.

 

He looked back to his phone. At a loss for any useful actions, he opened Instagram like a trained seal looking for sardines. The first thing on his feed was an old woman making pasta by hand. She was Italian? European at any rate, with impossibly thin arms that molded sad little noodles out of eggy dough. It was hard not to wonder what the old woman thought of someone pointing a glass and plastic rectangle at her, filled with lithium and wires, while she made pasta for strangers on the internet. Below that video was another in which a pair of hands were holding a dead baby. The deceased skin was a peculiar slate color, like the color of modeling clay, which added a surreal quality to the already abhorrent subject. The baby had made the mistake of being Palestinian, so it had been killed by American made bombs. The peculiar gray was cement dust from an obliterated building. The dust crumbled off the baby’s head as it was rotated for the video. In the comments, people were upset, which you could tell by the high proportion of capital letters. People were posting watermelon emojis and clenched fists. The next thing on Ray’s feed was an advertisement for Tropicana orange juice. It poured from the top of the screen and into a smooth glass, splashing around in an enticing and sexy way. Turns out it was better than ever.

 

Ray contemplated cruelty some more and quickly closed the app.

 

Unfortunately, the dog had been trained, Pavlov-stye, to wake up anytime she heard the double click of a cell phone turning off. Turning off the cell phone meant something was about to happen- a walk, a meal, anything for Christ’s sake. Nothing happens until the rectangle makes the double click and the screen goes dark. She instinctively awoke without moving.

 

Her eyes focused on Ray from her vantage point laying in the cozy blanket. He pretended not to notice.

 

“What’s up?” She asked. He put his hand up to his chin in a contemplative way and stared out the window once more. His neighbor’s windows were dark and uncomforting now, no light to be found. He didn’t answer. “More feelings?”

 

“Are dogs cruel?”

 

She raised her head, this time more lazily. “Like, mean?”

 

“Yeah sort of? Like, mean for no reason.”

 

Her eyebrows shifted up and down and she looked around the couch while thinking. “Dog’s aren’t mean, they just need to figure out how to act around each other.”

 

This struck Ray as poignant but he had no idea why. “Act how?” he asked.

 

“Dogs only know how to behave in relation to other dogs in a group. If another dog is more dominant, then you know how to act. If another dog is more submissive, then you know how to act. If you think your position in a group isn’t correct, you fix it by showing the dog above you that you’re more dominant. Dogs need to figure that out before they know how to behave around each other. Once you figure it out, everything is fine, because then you know how to act in the group. Nobody is mean, they are just figuring it out.”

 

“What about abused dogs?”

 

“Oh yeah, well there’s a lot of trauma in the dog world. That’s different.”

 

Ray’s face twisted incredulously. “You know what trauma is but you don’t know what feelings are?”

 

Her fur seemed to stretch and extend out from her powerful neck and she sighed and let her body relax into the blanket. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

 

Ray wouldn’t let go. “If you know what trauma is then you must know what cruelty is.”

 

The dog glanced at him sharply. “You asked me if dogs were cruel, not ‘what is cruel?’”

 

Afraid of being outsmarted by his dog, Ray persisted by asking “Well then who is cruel?” The words tumbled out of his mouth too fast.

 

“Who do you think?” asked the dog. Shit, Ray thought. It’s people. 

 

They both sighed.