Clementine
By Elda Oreto
One of the best things about October is that the weather is neither cold nor really warm. October is the best season to go for long walks in the forest but also to hang out and go shopping. But Dirk wasn’t keen on either of these two things. He enjoyed staying home and watching movies, streamed from the internet—almost anything from fiction to random homemade porn. Basically, this was his main activity, and sometimes, as a part-time activity, he looked for a job. Which was almost impossible in Berlin. These were hard times for good people. Dirk, twenty-one years old, with dark blonde hair and 185 centimeters tall, had started Medical school once he had finished college; then he had met a friend who told him that there was an easier way to make money—much faster, no stress: being an internet artist. So he changed his course of study from medicine and started taking classes at the art academy. His parents angrily cut off their support, and he began to starve, like any other artist in Berlin. He thought that was just cool. The truth was it was actually very hard to find a job because there was too much competition. So Dirk spent all his time taking ecstasy, drinking, using mescaline, taking MDMA, smoking marijuana, eating junk food and, most of all, doing cocaine.
On Thursday morning, Dirk woke up at twelve pm. He ate and played on the internet for a couple of hours. He was looking for inspiration. Not finding any, he took a nap and after that, he went to an opening and then partied until five am. This was it - the life of an artist, designed to burn itself out for the…the… Well, this was what everybody else did. A few of his friends had been luckier, and they had found galleries that were “supporting” them. By “supporting,” they meant paying their rent, paying their bills, buying them food, clothes, pants, socks, etc.
A few months before, in the spring, Dirk had met a girl. She was just lovely. There was no other way to describe her . A flower that had come out after the rain. Her name was Clementine. She was twenty-three years old, with long red-blonde hair and sensual green eyes, like two magnets. She was studying architecture and working at a small, fancy but good design studio as a photographer. She and Dirk had met at a party given by a mutual friend. She was interested in what he was doing as an “artist,” and he thought that the conversation between them was profound and interesting. Dirk had told her that there was a special connection between them. They ended up together that night and the night after and the night after that, and so on. It was an amazing time. Fun, jokes, making love, sun, food, wine and talk, talk, talk. Maybe too much talk, because after three weeks, she reached a point of no return. He was taking time off, and she started to date another guy, Jack. Soon Jack and Clementine were engaged.
At first, Dirk felt nothing. He didn’t consider it a great loss or disappointment. He took it well. He was fine. As fine as he had always been. He was hanging around with other girls and friends, and so on. Until one day. What fucking happened that day he could not explain to anybody.
Nadine, long-legged and eighteen, blonde hair and dumb blue eyes, had asked him to go with her to the animal shelter because she wanted to rescue a cat. Dirk called the place the “Dog Jail.” Nadine wanted to adopt a cat — a sweet fluffy cat! It was a mild, warm October day. Dirk thought that it was nice to be walking with Nadine, but she was not so much fun to talk to. She wanted to talk only about herself and her stupid job. She was an actress but just starting out, and in order to survive, she was working as a prostitute at a whorehouse. She did not keep her work a secret, because in Berlin prostitution was not illegal. Anyway, she said that she was open-minded, and she thought it was cool to say it openly. Nevertheless, Dirk found her incredibly boring.
The dog shelter was far from the center of town. It was a big building further north, out in the countryside. They had to walk a lot, even after they had taken a U-Bahn and a bus and a tram. They walked on in the hot sun, and as they were walking along, Dirk thought he saw something in the meadow. He looked again and saw something weird. He could not make out what it was, but it looked like a huge rat or a small kangaroo. He stopped and tried to focus and get a better look. Nadine asked him what he was doing, and he asked if she could see anything strange, over in the meadow. Nadine replied that she could see nothing, so Dirk thought: maybe it was a cat.
Finally they found themselves in front of a huge concrete building from the seventies.The shelter looked like a big spaceship: the buildings were constructed in four different circles. In each of those four little circles were the dog shelters. Almost all of the dogs had been abandoned; people often got rid of dogs when they were too old or useless, or when they did not play by the rules.
First, Nadine decided to go to the toilet “to piss”—she said this loud and clear—and after that, they took a tour of the place and looked at the animals. There were so many of them in cages. All kinds of animals, not just cats or dogs, but rabbits, reptiles, wild cats, even a wild pig that had been domesticated, monkeys and wild creatures. Dirk and Nadine forgot the purpose of their visit and began to wander around. They went into the house where the rescued dogs were kept. Beyond the entrance, in a little courtyard, there was a big space where a dog was running free. All around the courtyard, there were rooms where many other dogs were kept. Nadine and Dirk turned left and stepped into the first room. As they entered, all the dogs in their cages began to bark like crazy. It sounded totally crazy - frightening, dark, loud, chaotic and utterly heartbreaking and meaningless sounds. Dirk felt scared but kept walking. Some of the dogs looked quite aggressive—like someone had ripped their hearts from their chests. Some others were totally mad, crazy: they were eating their own faeces, running around in circles. Some other dogs were just begging for attention and almost seemed to be pleading , “Please, take me, take me.” Every pathetic gesture in that room was something Dirk had never understood.
The last room was for the dangerous dogs. The ones that nobody would take. And it was there that he saw her: Clementine—a big, white mass of fur, straight ears, open mouth. A cross between a dog and a wolf with a genetic quirk that made her incapable of controlling her own unpredictable, wild behavior. She stood up and ran to the back of her cage. She looked at Dirk, and stared at him without flinching. And Dirk suddenly understood everything. It was time to get away from that place.
That night, Dirk stayed home. No openings, no stupid or foolish chatting, no drugs and no sex. He waited at home. He was waiting for someone or for something but he did not know who or what. After some time he had a terrible headache. Dirk took some painkillers, practiced some breathing exercises that he had learned at yoga classes and finally fell asleep. Then Dirk had a dream. He was in a forest, and she was there—Clementine, with her long, red-blonde hair and magnetic eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, like nobody ever had, and walked across the forest towards him. She stopped at a certain point, and she pointed her finger at him, in his direction. She pointed at something at his back. So he turned slowly. There stood the big, white female cur, and it jumped at him. Dirk felt terrified and helpless in the face of this majestic beast that was completely indifferent to his fear. He woke up all sweaty, and suddenly he knew what was going to happen, and he knew what he had to do. What he had seen that morning at the dog shelter was a shocking manifestation of the great mistake of humanity. It was something that broke him. What did all of these humans want to do with those dogs? Why had they abandoned them? Why had they owned them in first place, if they didn’t really want them? And why did they treat them so badly? For a dog, a human was everything; he was its whole world. If all of the dogs could speak, would we listen to their stories of pain, suffering, violence, disrespect, disillusion? No, we would not. We are not loyal. Loyalty is not a human quality at all. But the worst and final torture was to be left alone in those cages. This was the worst thing that could happen to anybody. Why should it happen to an innocent being?
Dirk decided that this horror should end.
He saw his whole life from another perspective. Now he knew why he had reached that point in his life. He saw the bigger picture, and he understood his role in all this. He went to his computer and found a website where he could buy a gun. It was easy and not expensive either.
It took fifteen days to get the weapon. When the package arrived, there was also a flyer with instructions that explained how to load the gun and shoot it. He learned all that he needed to know.
He was ready to go. At seven am, he walked out of his apartment in Neukolln to go to Mauerpark . It was early and his flatmate was still sleeping, so he slipped out of the apartment. He had the weapon in a big backpack so that he could pass unnoticed as he walked down the street; there was nobody on the streets. Another new day was starting. People were ready to go to work, opening bakeries, walking with coffee to go.
He took a U-Bahn to Bernauer Strasse, the closest metro to the park. There, in the U-Bahn, he found the first one: tiny eyes looking out from a small handbag. The tiny creature seemed to know what was going on, and he looked up at the fat, old blonde German lady who was carrying that tiny, heavy bag. The train stopped, and she went in, followed by Dirk. He travelled quietly, and he soon arrived at his station. He went out and arrived at a dog area in Mauerpark .
There he saw the second one: a dark spot in the field, running free, with a bald, drunk guy behind him. The guy was not far from Dirk, maybe five meters away. The guy was screaming at the dog, calling him back. Dirk stopped to walk and opened his backpack. His hands were sweaty but steady. He pointed the weapon and shot the man. A long, drawn out scream came from the guy; it did not sound human at all. The bald man went down, and Dirk drew close to him and saw that he was bleeding from his chest and that blood was also coming out of his mouth. He shot him another time right in the center of the head. Nobody was around, so he started walking again. The black dog just stayed there, watching the scene, moaning in fear. He came close to his owner and licked him, and then he started barking, but there was nothing Dirk could do to help him.
After some time, Dirk saw the third one. An old, white dog was lumbering along slowly, dragged by a tall, blonde girl who was busy with her phone. The dog was huge. He was so old that his ears seemed to be falling off, and he looked particularly sad. Suddenly, the old dog stopped in the middle of the way, and the girl screamed at him shouting that he was retarded. The old dog got scared, and he peed on himself. The girl was even more upset, and she looked around to see if anybody could see her; then she turned and she hit him. Dirk saw everything and walked quickly toward them. When he was a couple of steps away from the girl, he said, “Excuse me. Don’t you think that it’s a horrible thing to hit animals?” She was very surprised, and she looked at him, ready to open her mouth and say something stupid. But she didn’t have time. He shot her in her mouth. Dirk looked at the dog and said gently, “Don’t worry. Now you are free.”
Dirk saw deep unhappiness and fear in those dark eyes, and he walked on. He saw the fourth and the fifth, a couple sitting on a bench. She was just sitting and looking at her iPhone. He was sitting silently by her side. Neither of them spoke to each other. Sitting in front of them was a beautiful husky. He was not playing with any other dogs, but he appeared to be waiting for some attention from the couple. Dirk went over the hill where the two were sitting, and once he was there, he said, “It’s going to rain today.” The two persons looked at him, wondering if he was crazy, but they did not say anything. Dirk went on: “Do you know how many chromosomes humans and gorillas share? Basically, we are the same.”
They looked at him like he was crazy and maybe he was. And the guy said, “Yes, like the planet of the apes” and laughed like a jerk.
Dirk went on: “Yeah, and do you know what the big difference is between gorillas and humans?”
The guy answered: “Maybe they cannot speak, and we can!”
Dirk looked at him, and as he shot him in the head, he said, “Sorry, that is the wrong answer.” The girl started crying. She ran behind the dog and tried to use him as a shield to cover her body. The dog started growling at Dirk, and Dirk looked at him in his blue eyes. He walked towards the dog, and when he came near, the dog stopped growling and lay down. The girl started to run away, and Dirk fired, first at her legs, then at her shoulder and at last in the middle of her back. The husky lay there.
By this time, Dirk could hear the sirens of the police cars and the ambulance, and he knew what to do. But…he just could not. So he started to run and run, and he heard the cop shouting loudly behind him “Stop running! Drop the gun!” But Dirk ran faster instead. They were chasing him, and they screamed that if he did not stop, they would fire. There was a sudden pain in his leg. They ran faster over the hill, and he went down a bridge turning in the opposite direction. Somehow they lost sight of him. He was bleeding a lot now, and he fell, exhausted, to the ground.
When he regained consciousness, it was evening and it was getting dark. He took off his coat and put his shirt under his pullover to make a bed. He took off his trousers, and he saw the red blood. It had smeared his whole leg. Not only that, he was in a great amount of pain. He bent his leg, put on the bloodied trousers and kept on walking. It took him four hours to reach the countryside, to the exact place where two weeks before, he had seen that strange creature: the kangaroo-cat-rat. It was almost nine pm, and it was already dark there. Stars filled the sky, and there was no trace of the moon. He arrived at the front entrance to the shelter. The tall gate was already closed. Someone had left another tiny, scared dog outside the gate, as a nice present for the upcoming day. What an asshole! Dirk approached the shelter from the back. A wall of trees enclosed the dog shelter garden, and it was easy to walk through. Once he was inside the place, there were no alarms, and Dirk went straight to the cage where Clementine was. He opened the first gate and slipped silently inside. She was sleeping. Clementine. She was lying in the dirt, such a beautiful, regal creature. She woke up and came close to the gate to look at him. In her eyes was a mixture of wildness and intelligence, when really there should have been just sweetness.
The next morning, at the animal shelter, the workers started to collect food for the pets and share it among the little houses. They did this chore every day around six am.
One of the workers came to the house where the wild, dangerous dogs were, and he immediately saw that something was wrong. The gate was open. He went inside slowly, prepared for a dog to try and attack him. He crossed the room and, instead, saw Dirk lying close to Clementine’s cage.
He had shot himself, deciding to end his life because he could not give her a new one. He had left her forever, but she knew that he was a loyal man.
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