Teaching the Dog to Read by Jonathan Carroll Read Free Book Online

were in the kitchen making a meal together. I don’t remember what it was, but that’s not important.” Lena wasn’t fully awake while he spoke but the eager, urgent tone of his voice said the dream meant a lot to him so she should listen carefully.
    “The front doorbell rang and I went to answer it. When I came back I was carrying a small box. The return address said only that it was from someone (?) named Gorbog.”
    Still sleepy-headed, Lena squinted at the wacky name, not sure she’d heard him right. “Who?”
    “Gorbog. I have no idea who or what that is. When I opened the box, the only thing inside was a can opener. The basic kind with two wings joined at the center you hook onto the lip of a can, close them, and then turn the key to open it?” Tony put his hands together and opened/closed them in an upside down “V” to demonstrate the kind of opener he was describing.
    Lena nodded she understood.
    “I took it out of the box and suddenly this light went on in my head. I knew exactly what it was for and why it’d been sent to me.” Tony sat up in bed and wiped his mouth. “I told you to take one side of it and I’d take the other. Then we were supposed to make a wish and pull it apart, like a regular wishbone on a chicken—”
    Lena raised one eyebrow and closed the other eye. “Make a wish and pull a metal can opener apart?”
    “Yes I know it sounds crazy, but let me finish—you’re going to like this next part, believe me. So we made our wishes and on the count of three, pulled like you do on any wishbone. The thing broke apart, but in the exact middle so neither got the short end. Neither of us won or lost. The opener snapped precisely in half.
    “You looked at me and asked what it meant. I said because we’d both made the same wish, now it was going to come true. You didn’t believe me and asked what I’d wished for. I said that our relationship would last. You started crying because that was your wish too.”
    Hearing this, Lena jerked up onto her elbows and stared at Tony, her eyes full of hope, doubt and a million questions. She didn’t know what to say while at the same time she was bursting to say so much.
    There are moments in any relationship which can come at the beginning, middle or end, where everything balances on a single word or sentence. Even one look can sometimes steady, or knock everything of importance onto its side, never to be righted again. Lena Schabort, who wasn’t often at a loss for words in her life, was terrified to say the wrong thing at this moment. Tony’s dream was so exciting in what it might mean for her future that perhaps it was better to remain silent and let his strange beautiful story simply breathe itself into life between them now like a just-born child, rather than if she were to say something that might spoil its promise.
    “It’s…lovely, Tony; like a mysterious perfume you smell only once but then it’s gone.”
    He smiled and looked down at his hands. Was he waiting for her to say more, to give a better (fuller, more coherent…) response that would seal their deal right there and then? Was recounting the dream his shy unique way of saying in real life his world was hers if she wanted it? Lena badly needed Tony to look up now so she could read his face for a sign. But to her dismay he said in a quieter subdued voice that he had to go to the toilet. Then to add to the disappointment he got out of bed and padded to the bathroom without looking back.
    Fists clenched tight with frustration, Lena sat in the middle of the bed fretting about what she should/would/could have done or said to make things right. Her frustration got worse when she heard the shower go on in there, which meant he wouldn’t be out of the bathroom for a while.
    When he did emerge an eternity later he smiled, told her he had to go back to his place to pick up his laptop, and would see her at work. When she asked lamely while he was dressing if he wouldn’t like some