Woodrow Kolomvos
Woodrow Kolomvos (they/them) is a non-binary storyteller and chaos bringer living in a cave somewhere in Brampton, Ontario. When they are not writing pieces of creative non-fictional or putting together a chapbook, they are working for their company, The Storyteller's Tavern. In their spare time, Woodrow plays table-top roleplaying games with their friends and attempts to discover the secrets of writing an interesting author biography; they still have not cracked the code.
"Are you lying?
I’m not lying. I’m not. Not at all.
It’d be easier on everyone if you just admit that you are."
I Was Bitten by a Dog Named Bernie
I Was Bitten by a Dog Named Bernie
Woodrow Kolomvos
I am running.
My bare feet slap against the cool, tiled kitchen floor. My step-grandmother, Gabriella, is sitting in the living room connected directly to the kitchen. She stares at her laptop with a firm expression of stress and concentration. I only catch brief glimpses of her every time I complete a lap around the dark island counter. I am filled with the gleeful energy of a seven-year-old.
Chasing me is Bernie, Gabriella’s German shepherd. He is a behemoth of a dog. His obsidian black fur is a blur. His chestnut brown eyes are locked onto me, glowing with excitement. He is untrained. He is constantly itching to jump, chase, run, play, and bite, apparently. Sprinting around the kitchen island, the world dissolves around me. It only fades back into view when I slow down, tired of the persistent chasing. Bernie does not stop. The sound of my strained breath in my ears is overtaken by the beating thumps of his paws. I speed up again and the chase continues.
As I run, a swelling lump begins in my stomach, travelling upwards into my throat. I push it back down. I trust Bernie. He is such a sweet dog. He is so playful and fun, always providing an endless supply of face kisses and happy whines whenever he sees me. If I stop, he will get it the second time. He will know that I no longer want to play.
I pause my running again and whip around to face Bernie. The black mass does not stop. He leaps up and I cross my arms over my face, instinctively flinching at the thing coming towards me. I feel a sharp, burning pain jolt through my left arm as Bernie strikes out with his teeth, grazing my chubby, soft flesh. I pull away just in time to prevent him from biting down any further and latching onto me. Where his teeth were there are angry, red marks and small dots of blood. I roughly clamp my hand down onto where the pain is coming from.
I am a liar, I think, because I don’t Remember as much as I lead you on to believe. Am I a liar if I tell a half truth? I know there was a dog and there was a bite, but other than that I don’t know, I don’t know at all; I must fill in everything else with my creative liberties, but does that not make me a liar? Is it then that you should not trust me at all? Should you not trust a single word of my experience? I Remember I was asked once by a counselor, “Do you ever hurt yourself?” I responded that sometimes I hit myself in the head; he looked at me sadly, so I felt too defeated to add that I did it when I had trouble Remembering something as if I was hoping that I could jostle the thoughts into place somehow. When I told this same thing to a friend of mine they said, “You have trouble regulating your emotions.” I have trouble regulating my emotions? I suppose I do, because I hit my head when I cannot think and when I cannot form thoughts, but even when I hit my head, I cannot Remember everything to provide for you here, so I think I must lie without a choice, and maybe in a way that makes me a bad person.
Bernie paces in front of me, tail wagging. Tears are streaming down my face. When I do not move for some time, he trots away. He goes into the living room and hops onto the couch where Gabriella is sitting. When his large body disturbs the cushions, Gabriella’s head snaps up and her eyes follow where Bernie had come from until her gaze settles on me, standing alone beside the island counter, silently crying. She stands, an air of irritation around her, and walks towards me. When she reaches me, she kneels and places her hand onto the side of my arm. Her long nails poke at my skin, causing me to shudder.
Gabriella gives my arm a squeeze. Why are you crying? Why are you crying? Her rough, nasally voice sounds more annoyed than concerned.
Bernie bit me! My voice is shaking and unsteady.
Her face contorts. Through my stinging, blurred sight, it is like watching wax melt. Her expression falls into a deep frown and her eyes narrow. She leads me to the couch and sits me down. I’m going to get your dad. She leaves me there without another word and goes to walk to the house next door. I hear Bernie panting beside me. His course breaths sound like someone sanding wood.
When Gabriella returns with dad, I feel his heavy footsteps approaching the living room from the hall that leads to the front door. He sighs when he sees me and mumbles something under his breath. I squirm in my skin. He walks over and kneels in front of me. Gabriella does not look at me. Instead, she opens the back door and lets Bernie outside.
Dad
is a blur.
He
exists in the wastelands of my Memory.
Dad
feels tangled up in my brain,
He
is like a tumor made of TV static.
Every time I
rewrite these memories I am asked
to bring Him into focus.
To show
you what he looks like, who he is.
Dad
is more of a presence than a Man.
He
is the haunting of therapy sessions.
He
is Narcissus’ reflection in a spring of water.
He
is a mortal who lives like he will never die.
He
is who I cannot forget.
He had ensured that
we could not trust anything at all.
we cannot trust ourselves at all.
Without a word, dad starts by taking my arm and examining the bite. The skin around it is swollen and is starting to turn a purplish color. A few agonizing minutes go by as dad pokes and prods the bite. When he finally stops, he stares up at me from above his rectangular glasses.
Are you sure Bernie bit you?
Yes, I am.
Are you sure you didn’t fall off your scooter and bruise your arm?
Yes. I think. No, yes. I am certain.
It doesn’t look like a bite to me.
It doesn’t? I’ve never seen a dog bite before. Has dad ever seen one? I remember riding my scooter earlier in the day, when the summer heat blazed down and made the concrete as hot as a stovetop, but I never fell off it. I was careful when riding it. Even when I went over the raised area of the sidewalk that was right in front of Kora’s house, I took great care to not fall when the wheels bounced over it. I did not fall. I didn’t.
Gabriella’s face was still melting and weighed down by the seething anger coming off her. You fell off your scooter and now you’re lying about Bernie biting you. The volume of her voice made me flinch.
I’m not lying. I’m not lying. I’m not lying. Am I lying? I would lie to mom and dad about each other. I would lie to dad about how much time mom would spend time with us, even when she didn’t, and I would lie to mom about how much I missed dad, even though I didn’t. But I couldn’t lie to them unless I was asked to. No, I couldn’t do that. I was too afraid to.
Is it cowardly to speak ill of someone in writing, but be unable to tell it to their face?
I say no.
Not everyone can be expected to triumph over an abuser.
Life is messier than that.
You never get the final say. In the rare instances when you do, it feels hollow.
You are left hollow.
Looking adults in the eyes scare me. I cannot hold a
conversation with a man, I don’t know how to speak to him in a
way that will not make him angry.
When someone is upset, I freeze up.
I disappear.
I have trouble Remembering my childhood.
What does it feel like to have a functional parent?
A parent that says,
“I love you.”
And you believe they mean it.
Are you lying?
I’m not lying. I’m not. Not at all.
It’d be easier on everyone if you just admit that you are.
I can’t admit that because I’m scared, Dad. Even if I was lying, I’m scared of you. Dad never hit me. Mom only ever hit me once. I don’t even remember why it happened, but she grabbed me by my arm and slapped me hard. You can tell anyone I hit you, you can tell anyone, I don’t give a shit.
Dad never hit me, and I didn’t admit to lying, because I was not. He brought me anyway. The next time I visited him he brought me, on a cold, overcast day. He had me dress up and wear my nice shoes. He brought me to the long, brown brick building, up the stone stairs, and inside where everything was brown wood walls and white tiled floor and smelt of freshly printed papers. We sat for hours outside of a courtroom that Gabriella disappeared into. He didn’t tell me what we were doing there until he was certain I had let my guard down.
Gabriella must fight for Bernie.
She does? Why does she have to do that?
Her neighbour is a liar. He said that Bernie attacked him and now she must fight for Bernie to not be taken away and put down. They want to kill Bernie. Do you want Bernie to be killed?
No. No, of course I don’t. I would never want that.
This is what happens when you lie. People get hurt.
We both fell silent until Gabriella came out of the courtroom crying. We drove home. We never spoke about the bite again and everyone believed I fell off my scooter. Bernie was not taken away and I don’t know if what he said about the neighbour was true.
When are we oversharing? How much can I write before a burden of truth catches up to me? I am terrified to publish a single word. During the day I smile, everything is fine, there is not a bad word exchanged, but when I write there is resentment and anger; I don’t know how to regulate my emotions and express them to anyone because it is so much easier to write them down than to say them out loud. How much longer can I throw sentences into nothingness before they’re found and read by those they are directed to? How do I continue the conversation when on the page, the period marks the end of my thoughts?
Don’t tell your mom, don’t tell your dad, don’t lie unless I tell you. Even when you’re not lying, you’re a liar, I hate you, you’re horrible. I miss you. I miss it when you’d say you love me. You love me, right? Yes Mom, yes Dad. I am your emotional support animal.
Bernie was untrained, but I was trained well.
Your Memory is Soiled by Your Own Mind.
Core Memory: Creating an experience, something to look back on, flutters of images that evoke emotion—sound is the first thing you lose in a Memory, whether the sound is the snap of a gunshot or the quiet mews of a firstborn child; Memories all decay to silent films before anything else. There is a theory that Memories fade because our minds are trying to make room for new information, like throwing a rotting, moth-eaten plushie away, your childhood is swept out of your mind with the bathwater. The Memories that were once as malleable as rough stone scraping your knees have become sand particles, impossible to grip for long without losing grains that fall and disappear into the grass below. I often find myself unable to recall much of the past at all; perhaps it is early-onset dementia, a disease that runs rampant in the women of my family, or perhaps I have repressed much of it, but during the times I do recall, I see it as if I am watching a film outside of my body. I usually watch my younger self crying, or sometimes I will remember my thoughts in the Memory, with most moving towards the macabre and violent. But out of all emotions, there is permanent feeling of hopelessness in each Memory, and there is something so sad about every detail of my life feeling hopeless.