Free to Write

With greasy fingers, she grasped the leash, her white knuckles icy white, as if holding onto her last breath. The old woman began walking her Milton, a tiny Bolognese, after leaving her spaghetti Bolognese al fresco, half-eaten. The dog’s needs came first, no matter how hungry she still felt. The unfinished meal still in her memory, she smiled, thinking of the word Bolognese and the resemblance of it to Baloney, meaning balderdash or nonsense. No wonder she loved nonsensical things…

Milton sniffed the ground, circled around it, and squatted. “We have that in common, Milton,” said the old woman. “We have to eat, then we have to go.”

While heading home, the dog looked up to her in a grin, as if thinking how he was the master and she the slave, regardless of the leash. He knew once inside, he would make her share her spaghetti with him.