When he wasn't looking I picked up the worn-out tennis ball and scurried inside. I used the halved laundry soap that I had freshly cut this morning to give it back its light lime hue. I've always preferred bar soaps over any other kind. I feel I have more control when an object requires me to use friction to make it do its magic rather than something easily dilutable like powder, liquid or paste. I laid the bathed tennis ball on the balcony to dry. I wouldn't be giving it back to my dog anytime soon.
My dog loves balls or any item than resembles a ball. The other day he caught sight of me carrying a cabbage and ran up to me to claim what he thought was his. As I said, he loves balls but he doesn't actually play with them. Balls seem to... change him - bring out the beastly persona that's hidden under his tiny, dark frame. His neck grows stiff and he growls at whoever gets near his prized possession. He's the size of a two-year old toddler but might weigh a bit less, now that his muscles have grown soft. He'll be 15 in September (70-something in dog years). He's still a fiesty hunter nonetheless. His prey include: geckos, birds, mice, and even rats half his size. Years ago - back when he was about three years old and I was a scrawny twenty-something year old - he approached me in the darkness of a cloudy sky with something huge and stiff in-between his claws. "Go away", I remember telling him. He ignored the alarm in my voice and rubbed what-the-next-morning-I-learned-was-a-rat against my ankle and dropped it on my sandled-feet as a token of a sort. It was by far the most selfless thing he's ever done for me.
In the past year I've been reflecting on all the things he loves and all the things he detests, because when I look at him I associate him with my late grandma. It's been almost two years since her passing, and what I regret most is not having made the short time I spent with her more pleasant. I wish I could have cooked her Andean cuisines she's never tasted, or spent more time listening to her stories rather than turning on the television to watch lame comedy.
I won't give my dog his tennis ball back, no. I'll make it up in other ways, ways that involve sardines, beef-broth and cassava bread. He sure loves his cassava bread, which he nibbles on - or pretend to nibble - when others are around. And when he is sure no one is looking he digs up a hole in a potted plant or in the flowerbed and securely hides his round loaf of cassava bread for when times get tough (that is, when he craves an afternoon snack or when he remembers having buried his treasure).
Photo taken in 2017, caught in the act.