The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman Page B

continued to snarl.
    “Fuck you, dog,” Rebecca whispered. She turned and walked away. Four steps later, as the dog continued to bark, Rebecca turned around and yelled “Fuck you, dog!” At the end of the alley, she yelled again. “Fuck! You! Dog!” Standing in front of her car, having already unlocked the door, Rebecca stopped and turned around again. “Fuck you!” she yelled. “Fuck you, dog!”
    She was in her car, still muttering “Fuck you, dog, fuck you,” when she realized that her feelings about Lisa were no longer just foggy; they were absent. Rebecca began sobbing, not for the loss of her sister, but for the loss of every emotion she had for her. Rebecca shut off the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. She cried for some time.
    She continued to sniffle as she drove towards the hospital. As she signalled her entry into the parking lot, she had a thought. Was it possible that her feelings about Lisa had been eliminated when she threw away her keepsakes? And if so, would throwing away any keepsake eradicate whatever emotional history was attached to it? It seemed ridiculous. It was the least likely explanation for the sudden absence of her feelings for Lisa. But realizing that the presence of the dog in her neighbours’ yard was the perfect opportunity to test this theory, she turned off her signal and drove directly to E.Z. Self Storage, where she parked and went immediately to the second floor.
    Hanging the open padlock on the door of unit #207, she returned to the stack of boxes in the front right corner. She removed the top two boxes and then opened the one marked fears. She tipped it over, spilling its contents across the concrete floor. With the toe of her rightshoe, she pushed objects out of the way until she found a child’s T-shirt with a ripped collar.
    Rebecca left unit #207 with the ripped T-shirt in her hand. Opening the back door of E.Z. Self Storage, she went straight to the Dumpster. A plywood bookshelf leaned out of the left corner, and two torn La-Z-Boy chairs were piled on the right. She scrunched up the T-shirt, making a tiny ball of cloth, which she threw into the air. It opened while still going up and then drifted lazily back down towards the middle of the Dumpster.
    “Fuck you, T-Bone,” she said. “Fuck you.”
    As the T-shirt landed amidst the trash, Rebecca felt the pain in her heart again, only this time it was much less intense. It was gone before she reached her car. Checking her watch, she saw that less than an hour had passed since she’d left her house. Just after she started the engine, she had a daydream in which she was a child playing in her parents’ backyard. Digging in her sandbox, she uncovered a set of miniature dogs. She lined them up in the grass and taught them to bark the national anthem. Again, this felt like a memory, though she knew it wasn’t. She’d practically forgotten about it by the time she parked on the side street behind her house and walked back to the alley.
    When she reached her neighbours’ backyard, the dog was still there, still tied to the tree. Its muscles were just as thick, its teeth just as sharp. Rebecca walked towards it. The dog did not growl or bark. As Rebecca continued to approach, she thought about the moment with T-Bone when her T-shirt had ripped and her fear of dogs had started. Although the facts remained vivid, emotionally it was if the event had never happened. Herfear of dogs had been completely wiped out. This reality was made impossible to deny by the fact that, as Rebecca stood next to the dog, it still didn’t bark, growl or snarl. It lifted up its head and, when Rebecca reached out her hand, the dog licked it, its tail wagging.

13
The Prairie Embassy Hotel
    There were few, if any, reasons for the Prairie Embassy Hotel to exist. Located three kilometres outside the town limits of Morris, Manitoba, it was not near a major tourist attraction, a natural wonder or even a major highway. The rooms did not