Story of No Return No. 2

Story of No Return No. 2

Mario Levrero

A dog, Campeón. I lived alone with him and at some point he started bothering me. I took him to the forest, left him tied up with a cord that he could break with a little perseverance, and went back home.

A couple of days later I had him scratching at the door; I let him in.

He became unbearable; I took him to a more distant forest and tied him to a tree with a stronger cord (I knew that the flaw was not in the cord but in the animal’s loyalty; perhaps I had the secret hope that this time he wouldn’t get loose and would die of hunger).

A few days later he came back.

I realized then that the dog would always come back; for fear of pangs of guilt, I didn’t dare kill him; and I thought that even if I managed to lose him, in a forest more distant still, I would live with the constant fear of his return; it would torment my nights and cloud my joys; his absence would tie me up more than his presence.

For barely a second, then, I hesitated before majesty of the dense forest—shadowy, imposing, unfamiliar—rising before my eyes; resolutely, I began going into it, and I went in deeper and deeper until, finally, I got lost.