Idle Time

Too much time on my hands, I've been spending hours and now weeks watching the dog die, listening to her breathing in her sleep, over-monitoring her bowel habits, imagining visits to the vet, questioning that skin sensitivity on the back of her neck that causes her to cry out when putting on her collar, imagining her fully dead, picking her up, lifeless, and putting her, in, what?, a box, do we even have the right box to carry out a small dead dog, and what's that car trip going to be like, and will we share it alone, she and I?

I was told you know when "it's their time" when they stop eating. So, she eats fine, but how can I trust that? she's a bitch, a terrier, a smartass, a bigmouth, always gone against the grain, recalcitrant, unaffectionate, cat-like almost, so she'll just keep eating greedily right to the end, die eating too fast maybe. Too much time on my hands, other things to notice that I choose to avoid, breathe away from, people whom I worry about, not their deaths but their lives, their choices and non-choices that I can't at all impact or redirect, just watch idly and say stupid things and be nervous. I prefer to continue to watch the dog die, for the next week or month or three or four years.