Observing Teah

Late night walk with Teah

It’s quiet out.

The ticking of my shoes.                                                                                                         

 The soft tapping of my cane. Certainly not Long John Silver’s cane, or was it his wooden leg?

Occasional voices, but always around the corner, no one in sight. It may be someone talking to themselves – or more likely on their phone. We seem to have become ever more in need of someone to talk with, to exchange words with, no matter how irrelevant.

Although it’s night, it’s not dark. There are lights everywhere, sometimes behind a half curtained door or window, more often up high illuminating the street. Only if I go to the edge of the cliff and look down over the valley, do I see darkness pinpointed by small lights betraying the presence of a house, a road, a settlement.

It’s not what she sees that interests Teah. It’s what her nose tells her as she follows an interesting scent, hopeful that it will sometimes lead her to a piece of pizza or a fried potato or Lord knows what that she can gobble up.

She lifts her head, her fringed banner tail with its white tip seems to be keeping time to something I cannot hear. Following her nose, her legs move in synchrony – forward the two on the right, then the two on the left. She walks fast, pulls me along.

Then when I decide to turn right, she stops. Sits down. Looks long at me. l want to go left, she says, and I’m not going to budge.  So, in the end, but not always, I do go left.