Chromatique

A pretty young lady was doing a TV interview with an elderly gentleman on a lawn in a park of a Dutch town somewhere. Next to the gentleman sat a spritely Jack-Russell dog. The man responded to her enquiry about the dog by saying “This is my best friend, if given I choice, I would let them rather take my life than his.”

“Really?”, the young lady asked, “would you give your life for your dog?”

“Yes,” he replied, “and why not?”

“Because it is only a dog!” she threw her blond hair back over her shoulder.

The man looked at her with honest eyes and said, “what do people mean when they say: it is only a dog?” The lady looked at the man vacuously and obviously out of her depth, and glanced at the camera. The interview ended there and moved over to a young girl dangling her feet in a pond.

Perhaps, like me, she often wonders about the words of this gentle man; do we not merely refuse acknowledgement to the realities that manifest in our lives; to accept responsibility for the depth of meaning behind our casual throw-away comments.

When I say “it’s only a dog”, what am I really saying?

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