Daiary 2

「The Alarm Dog」

Every morning a dog barks at seven oﾕclock. . Unfortunately, the sound comes directly through her closed bedroom window from the second floor veranda of the neighbors. She is Japanese and was brought up in Tokyo, so she is used to living in a tiny space with a lot of noise. She knows how to listen to it as an extension of a lullaby, but her husband Steve does not.
When the dog starts to cry at seven oﾕclock, Steve twists his body, covers his head under the pillow, and curses the situation with dirty words.
She does not care about the dogﾕs cry, but her husbandﾕs abusive language makes her uncomfortable.
"Why do I listen to these dirty words at seven o'clock every morning?"
She tries to transform these words into Japanese but it makes her angry.
For several weeks she tries to be patient and understanding. One morning at seven o'clock she finally barks at him.
"I don't want to hear your dirty words at this hour of the morning!"
After she yells at him, he stops cursing, but he finds another way to express his frustration. When the dog starts to bark he twists his body, puts his pillow on his head, covers it with his hand and pretends to make a pistol with his other hand. He points the pistol to the veranda of the next house, then shoot with his voice "Bus! Bus! Bus!" She feels embarrassed with his gesture, but at the same time it makes her laugh.
"My Japanese consciences begins to fall down in America because I feel an impulse to do the same things as him," she thinks.

The next weekend, while she is making lunch, suddenly the dog starts to bark loudly on the veranda. She is irritated, and finally she makes her hand into a pistol and shoots from the windows "Bus! Bus! Bus!"
"Welcome to America" Steve says, while watching everything she does. He smiles at her.

For five days, the dog doesn't bark. She looks up at the veranda from the garden, but there is no sin of the dog. Steve seems to know something about it, so she asks him. According to Steve, one day while paying the rent, he complained to the landlord about the dog. Steve knew other neighbors who also had strong complaints. The owner must have had heavy pressure from the neighborhood.
Steve says, "Maybe the dog was disposed of by its owner."
She is shocked, disgusted and at loss for words.
"I took part in killing the dog, even if indirectly."
She remembers her gesture to shoot the dog with her hand and feels guilty.
But the guilt quickly passes because her mornings had become peaceful and
Lovely. She and her husband wake up with a smile at each other, and while getting their orange juice, she says herself "I enjoy my quiet mornings with my husband."

One day in the late morning, she is having breakfast alone in the garden. She feels someone staring at her, so she turns around, but nobody is there. She looks up at the neighborﾕs veranda and is surprised to see the big dark brown dog, the "alarm "dog watching her.
" Oh! You! Didn't you die?"
The dog seems to acknowledge her mute question and wags his tail. The telephone is ringing and she goes back to the kitchen. She forgets what she had seen that morning during her busy day.

The next morning the dog starts to bark right at seven o'clock like a siren. Steve immediately twists his body.
" Uh! Uh! He didn't die! Did he?"
Warm pleasure fills her and spreads to her heart. His barking is proof he is alive.

On that day they move their bed to the next room while the alarm dog's barking becomes a little bit further away, sort of like a noisy lullaby.

Diary1 "My room mate called Yes!"

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