Page 26, Line 26 by Lindsey Dawson

Inspired by 26th line on P 26 of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari.

Stolen Focus

Every morning, his two boys would leap all over him and his wife, excitedly shrieking, glad to be awake for another day. Sheree adored them. ‘Don’t!’ She squealed whenever Tex brushed them off. ‘You’ll hurt them!’

But the dogs weren’t his boys. He detested that hysterical yapping chihuahua racket.

She didn’t know how hard it was for Tex to merely push them away. He dreamed sometimes of erupting out of bed and flinging them out the apartment window, their screeching cries fading as they fell through the treetops to the carpark eight storeys below.

Walking in the park, Sheree would tell admiring strangers she was Brucie and Basil’s doggy mommy. Tex would cringe at the implication he was a doggy dad. Sheree adored how the boys, sporting cute little red collars, minced along on their tiny drumstick legs. Tex wanted a dog that could lope.

One night he went out. The house was quiet when he returned. ‘Sheree?’ he called. He found her, expired, in bed, with Brucie and Basil crouching against each of her ample upper arms. Her heart, of course. He’d been half-expecting it. The quivering boys bared their needle teeth and emitted pipsqueak growls.

After the funeral he went to a pet store and swapped them for a dog built like a packing crate. Bruno could lope. ‘Wow, what a massive fur-baby,’ someone said in the park. ‘I’m his master, not his dad,’ Tex protested. And yet, was it regret or love that had made him replace Bruno’s stout collar with a stylish one in red?

Lindsay Dawson