A curse that fell on me at the worst possible moment.
Its nature allows the subject to retain a moment indefinitely until it is mentioned or shared. In essence, it needs to be expressed or turned real. At that point, it is no longer in the mind. It can be seen as either a blessing or a curse as it reveals truth and forces us to confront and move on.

What it is depends on when it is that you cross its path.

It happened to me at the very moment I lost my dogs, or did I lose them due to The Moment? My Lara and her young puppy, who despite this, was almost twice her size even now at the age of 5 month old.

Since it left me, I like to believe I’ve cherished every memory that still hasn’t turned into words and respect the reality of those that have. Every word is rooted in reality, everything else is free to go. The sense of disorientation and the feeling of being unable to help the two creatures very close to my heart almost broke me back then.

I remember running down a hill looking at the sun that had started to set, trying to catch up to the dogs before they reach the busy road covered by darkness. The little one, Lan, was smart and brave even as a small pup. Assessing the situation and stepping into trouble if he felt a need to do so despite his age. Even so, he was always reckless when it came to his mother, running after her no matter what she did. Even if among the two she was known as the childish one, always getting them in this kind of trouble and therefore always dependent on my quick response. I didn’t mind, as long as they were happy I was glad to play the responsible owner.

The truth is, she would never really run that far. She didn’t actually intend to go anywhere, rather it was her nature that clouded her senses and produced such frenzy, usually triggered after spotting a small animal. But at some point, I would always catch up, and issue an authoritative below that would echo through the surrounding air snapping her out of it and stopping the duo in their tracks. Except this time when I started talking to them, about halfway down the hill, they seemed to… It would be wrong to say that they speed up. It was more like they teleported first every meter, then every two, then five, ten, and then they were gone. As if life turned to stop motion, cutting everything in between but the bear essentials. It seemed to last only a minute or so, but as I stopped talking to get a sense of what was happening, it started clearing. At this point, the traffic was almost gone and the cars parked near the gas station where the dogs were heading, had left. It was evening and the possibilities of what might have happened raced through my mind like a string of short to-the-point series of nightmares.

Nearing my destination I spotted the first trace of what could be called good luck: the gas station was still open. Two dogs running on a busy road were bound to cause a commotion. “He was sure to know something,” I said to myself as clinging to hope was all that was keeping me from crumbling into a mess of emotions.

“My dogs! Have you seen my dogs” I cried to the man in front who was preparing to close for the night.
“Dogs?!…” he asked with what I read as a relieved look just starting to form on his face. “Yes! I’ve seen them. They…” vanished. In the blink of an eye the man standing in front of me vanished in the middle of his sentence, and what was sunset until then, now turned into darkness of night.

Looking at it back now, I could have probably saved them both. If I had just remained calm I could have connected it all much sooner.

Lost so much less…

But as a man filled with concern, I let shame creep into me during those crucial times. Shame that steamed from that moment when I was no longer thinking about the dogs, but worried about what was happening to myself. Even thou it didn’t last long, it occupied a part of my mind that could have led me to them much sooner. As I wouldn’t have run around panic-stricken bearing my love and worry for the creatures I lost. Wouldn’t have poured my soul into the empty night. No progress did it make, rather it only took away precious time as in the distance I watched the birth of a new day.

Sunrise.

Too short did I cut the time I had to search in remembrance. So wiping the tears I realized I could not recall why they were there, as there were more important things to be done in their place. That thought seemed to form out of nothing, filling me with new strength.

Cutting out what holds you back is sometimes the only way to move forward. Realizing this from what happened during that moment I knew the importance of what was just lost, and why I mustn’t waste the chance I was given. The strategy of saying only that I was not afraid of giving up, things I am certain of, things that won’t abandon me even after losing them, was a newly formed weapon I would use to reach my goal. With this as my direction, I made the necessary next steps forward.

So much time did I lose in sorrow only to realize it was a mistake I needlessly made. Long before it was incited, the man at the gas station gave important information that would have circumvented most of what had happened, that would guide me to the only place I could go to in this state. Even if I wanted to save it all, the truth is, I’m just one small voice limited to what I can achieve alone. Humbled, I let go of everything I could not save for the sake of the goal I saw clearly in front of me. Never letting it out of my sight; never giving it up, even as the Moment began to leave me behind never did I lose focus. Caged and waiting for me, I found Lara in a shelter at the edge of anything familiar, a great distance from everything I considered safe. But still, I walked there left with nothing but hope for this outcome, ending this story and taking her home before any more tragedy would have time to strike thus making this story a cautionary tale worth telling.

She was my childhood dog. I was barely a teenager when this happened and a story I told my parents about that night was the only acceptable truth I could tell, that being a lie. Being a lost, moody and unpredictable youth, in their eyes worked in my favor to gain more understanding for actions I took during these events, but not any that gives any comfort to me. She died several years later at the age of eight years old from a heart attack brought on by a heat stroke while driving in a car during a hot summer day. I loved that dog very much, and I will always remember that, and of course her.

What about Lan you may wonder? That is the reason that makes this memory worth a retelling. A dog that entered a story but never came out of it. Well… Lan never existed. No story left to tell there no matter how hard I wish to tell it.

Turns out he was a victim of The Moment. I never got him back, nor the memory of him. But every now and then it’s as if I’m fighting with myself to remember. So I invent a dog that I once had. Whether he stopped existing altogether or just as part of my life, I don’t know. But the thought of him sitting on the cold floor of a cage somewhere in the back of that shelter, waiting confidently and believing that I’ll come to free him, embracing hope right until that moment finally comes and I enter the room. At that time he stands happily to greet me, jumping on the cold thin mesh of the cage, only for me to coldly walk past him. This is a recurring nightmare that keeps me up on certain nights. That part of me still fighting never to forget keeps telling me there was once a second dog I loved just as much as Lara. One who’s story I can never share as I would be crying for a lie. One that can be told nowhere else but here, in this space dedicated to lies just as much as truth.