“This Side of the Jumping-Off Place” by William Cass

This Side of the Jumping-Off Place

For some reason, I found myself thinking of two random, unrelated stories while my wife, Gwen, and I sat in our vet’s waiting room. We’d just found our old dog, Jake, unresponsive but breathing in our mudroom. At the time, we’d been on our way to the driveway where her car was parked, as I desperately tried to think of some last-ditch way to make her change her plans. When we came upon Jake lying there, she dropped what she was holding, wrapped him tenderly in her arms, and said, “My keys are in my coat pocket. You drive, and I’ll call Dr. Higgins on the way.”
We sat side by side on the hard couch in the empty waiting room. We hadn’t spoken since the vet tech had rushed Jake into the back hallway of exam rooms after we burst through the clinic’s doors with him.
I suppose it was the unfathomable idea of living without either of them that caused the first story to invade my mind. I’d come upon it years before in a newspaper, the recounting of a small bird known as the Stephens Island wren. The bird, one of three flightless species in the world, was only found on that teardrop of land off the northernmost tip of New Zealand’s South Island, uninhabited until a lighthouse was built there in the late 1800s. Once the lighthouse keeper began his lonely duties there, his cat began bringing various species of the wren to his doorstep after killing them. Despite the keeper’s efforts otherwise, this continued until the small bird, which resembled a mouse in size, color, and movement, eventually became extinct.
After ruminating on that for several moments, I put my hand on Gwen’s thigh. She didn’t put hers on top of mine, but she made no attempt to remove it.
My thoughts returned to Jake’s eleven years with us, as did the image of his empty dog bed with the worn snuggle puppy he wouldn’t sleep without. Jake had been lying on his side on the linoleum next to his bed when we came into the mudroom, which was why we immediately knew something was amiss. That memory reminded me of the second story I’d seen featured as a human interest tidbit to end a recent television newscast. A related report had been broadcast the prior week regarding a car crash that had seriously injured a seven year-old girl and destroyed her beloved stuffed elephant. The follow-up report had to do with inmates at a nearby maximum-security prison who’d seen the broadcast and had taken up a collection to send a replacement stuffed elephant to the girl in the ICU, as well as a get-well card they all signed.
When I gave Gwen’s thigh a squeeze, the breath she blew out seemed full of misery. Dr. Higgins emerged from the hallway then, met our gazes, pressed his lips into a taut line, and shook his head. He let a few seconds pass before explaining the options for disposal of Jake’s body. We quickly chose to have his office take care of those arrangements, then both declined his offer to be with Jake a last time and left.
Gwen drove us home, and we didn’t speak on the way there either. When we entered the mudroom, she simply picked up her suitcase where she’d dropped it, looked at me sadly, and nodded.
“Don’t,” I managed to say. “Not after Jake . . . ”
“It doesn’t change things with us.”
“Gwen, please.”
As I reached for her, she ducked under my arm and pushed outside, leaving the door ajar. I squeezed my eyes shut. Her car engine started, and I collapsed into Jake’s dog bed. I listened to the sound of her car back down the driveway, then disappear up the street and brought Jake’s snuggle puppy to my chest. A wren that once thrived on an island halfway across the world was no more, but an injured little girl had a new stuffed animal; I hoped so badly that she was all right, that her recovery was complete. I was vaguely aware of the furnace kicking on in the basement and the wind chimes over the back door tinkling on the cold breeze. 

William Cass

William Cass has had over 325 short stories appear in literary magazines and anthologies. A nominee for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net, he’s also had six Pushcart nominations and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. His first short story collection was published by Wising Up Press in 2020, and a second collection has recently been released by the same press. He lives in San Diego, California. 

Photo Credit: Staff