Published by Mnemotope
Words by Rowan Morrow
Illustration by Lucile Farroni
Maybe it’s because my eldest son is 13 now. Or maybe it’s because we recently adopted a rescue dog who is snoring at my feet as I write this. Either way, I love the sweet sense of loss in this story. It was published in Mnemotope, a radically open literary magazine that seeks out writing by people who wouldn’t normally appear in literary magazines, and it’s a lovely, simple piece of writing about the strange sadness of being a teenager and growing up.
When you’re seven or eight, everyone wants a dog, and sometimes your parents are actually willing to get you one. So by the time you get to seventeen or eighteen, you have all these childhood dogs laying around, looking all docile and wise at the end of their lives just as you’re reaching peak teenage stupid. I love these animals. They’re a real calming presence: they give the houseparty a certain je ne sais quoi. This one goes out to my friends’ old dogs.