Peace Time

I liked my new neigh­bour well enough. We traded niceties over the gar­den fence. After three months we exchanged house keys. Then she bought a dog. A ter­rier. It needed a firm hand. Instead she called it Philippe, fed it organic dog bis­cotti and had its horo­scope read. Philippe did not improve the neigh­bour­hood. He ran from yard to yard like a hir­sute gar­den gnome gone rogue, dig­ging holes, chas­ing cats and bark­ing at pot­ted plants. For the sake of peace I bit my lip. Philippe upped the ante and pooped on my wel­come mat. I bagged the turd and gave it to her. Next morn­ing I found my keys slipped through my mail slot. Later she set her sprin­kler on high and aimed it over the fence onto my ham­mock. That sum­mer they both ran wild. Philippe dug new and deeper holes. She cranked the vol­ume on her radio, set it to CFOX and pushed it up against my cedar hedge. He rolled in her com­post, squeezed through the hedge and raced round my house shed­ding noi­some bits of rot­ting veg. She threw used tea bags onto my patio. One after­noon I peeked out and saw a movmg van in front of her house. Soon I had new neigh­bours, a nice cou­ple with a well-trained Lab named Bob who never barked. Two weeks passed qui­etly. I slouched in my ham­mock engulfed in ennui, eye­ing Bob through a gap in the hedge. He lay stretched and still like a yel­low bearskin rug. I slipped out of my ham­mock, edged close to the gap.

“Miaow,” I said. “Miaow.” Bob leapt up, barking.