Dog-Walker (Madlibs Edition) | Liz Wride

Never be a dog-walker.

Most _____________ job in the world. More importantly, in crime-dramas, it’s always the dog-walker that finds the dead body.

Since I was a little ____________, I’d worn running shoes, to make sure I was always a dog-runner and never a dog-walker. The tongues of my sneakers and the tail of my dog would wag, as we ran, ________ ___________, through the streets. There is _______ in being a dog-runner. It’s almost as if the somber ____________ of dog-walkers attracts dead bodies.

Now, as an adult, me and ___________, my faithful-four-legged, are ___________-ing down the street. We get to see the world in _____________ as it _______________ by, like a ________________in-motion.

Our run down-hill to the park, is like a run-on sentence: wearerunningsofastthatwecantstopandmyheelhitsthetarmacandsodothedogspawsandwepoubdthetarmac -then I see it – a dead body lying in the entrance to the park - like an exclamation mark.

I see a pair of ________________, they are ____________________ and ________________. Maybe it’s true, that if we go out of our way to look for things – we find them.

I am going to be the _________that found a dead body. I am going to smell eternally of ___________.

It begins to move, the dead thing – then I see what’s truly in front of me – who is truly in front of me - standing at the entrance of the park – like a full-stop. No – an exclamation mark…. It’s them.

Seeing __________ is not like seeing a dead body, it’s like seeing a ______________. ___________ looks___________. Their eyes are ____________, their clothes _____________ than I remember. 

I wonder if they see me, as a dead body.

I recall their philosophy on life, with painful clarity: people and animals should only run if they are being _______________.

The _____________ we could have had, flashes before my eyes. I see our _________; our Sundays like _________.

The dog pulls the lead – pulling me back to the here and now.

The ‘dead body’ at the side of them is nothing more than a _____________________ decoration, although why they have it now, I have no idea. I’m not about to ask.

“How are you?” I’m not sure who asks it.

“I’m _______________.” Comes the answer. I’m not sure who answers.

The words hang between us.

“Do you want to get a __________, sometime? As ________________?”

“____________.” The answer is definitive. I’m not sure if it comes from my mouth or theirs.

I walk away. 

The dog walks beside me. 

We are more __________-beat, now. 

I don’t look back. 

I can’t see you over my shoulder. 

It will start my emotions up again: ___________ and ___________ swirling, like the afternoon clouds.

They have made me a dog-walker, now, like they’ve always wanted

Liz Wride is a writer from Wales. Her fiction, articles and plays. Her has appeared in Okay Donkey Mag, Milk Candy Review, Trampset and others. She is currently learning Welsh.