Hard Footsteps

I walked to and from work through the alleys of the city, I like walking through alleys of a city as opposed to on the sidewalks. Walking over oil scummed puddles and the carcasses of banana peels and skeletons of old pummeled out bed frames that rested against backs of lattices full of morning glories entwined with overgrown lilac bushes seemed dispiritingly poetic. This would have been the real way the Prince ought to have found his Sleeping Beauty: entwined in honeysuckle vines on a rotting mattress. The alleys are quiet and they have certain voyeuristic feel to them as one looks into backyards and through windows that no one thinks are going to be looked through so they are always open. They are nice and peaceful with an odd style, slipping down the gravel alleys, in and out of unkempt potholes and around trashcans; a lovely way to walk through a city.
One night, on my way home from work, I was taking my favorite side street that led to the last of the alleyways I took home and I witnessed a dogfight. It wasn’t exactly a fight in the beginning, at first I turned down the alley and I caught a glimpse of two dogs and one was giving it to the other. I wasn’t really that interested, two matt haired mutt dogs in the midst of making one more mutt litter, I kept walking. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a third mange mutt gallop up to the pair. This one was much bigger than both the other two and look like one of its parents had got in with a pack of wolves to produce this one. He headed straight towards the pair, who didn’t skip a beat, got to get it while the getting is good, huh? The big wolf dog started off growling and snarling, wanting the other guy to get lost, he started nipping at his hind legs and giving out all kinds of crazy noises. One of those nips must have been more like a full fledged bite because the first guy stopped what he was doing and the two started in on it. They were snapping their mung covered jaws at each other and standing up on their hindquarters and then the big wolf dog got a good latch on of the smaller guys throat, he must have known he had a good grip because he sank down good and started thrashing his head back and forth. Blood spurt out of the smaller dog and sailed around like streamers with droplets of it landing on the sandy ground and balling up like beads of mercury.
I stood back a bit and was watching as I had never seen a dog fight before, the female dog had been standing opposite me watching the same and waiting to see what the outcome was going to be and who was going to help her make her litter. When all that blood started dropping on the ground big like the first raindrops of a thunderstorm, she started whining and pacing back and forth.
The big wolf dog, tasting so much blood or something, looked like he had changed, he wasn’t out roaming alleys anymore a forgotten pet; he was a wild lethal wolf, a knife sharpened by thousands of years of evolution. The big wolf dog didn’t let go for a couple minutes, he just held on, thrashing the other dog’s neck around and spraying blood everywhere. He must have broken his neck and eventually let the neck go and the smaller guy fell to the ground. The wolf dog then went round the other side to the female who was making a lot of noise at that time and he started on her snapping his jaws then he lunged for her. He got her by the neck and started in on her the same way he had done to the other dog and, same as him, blood started spraying out like a summertime sprinkler and she fell to the ground in a whimper. He hadn’t killed her like he killed the other dog so he started biting and chewing on her exposed belly. By the time he had satisfied himself and backed away from her in a dripping mess, he had eaten through her guts and her backbone glistened in the streetlight. He backed up a little, looked around and didn’t seem to see me or the puddle of vomit that had appeared at my feet, turned around and ran back down the alley like he was being called back to a home he never had.