Fear the Man, not his Dog

Downstairs, living at the bottom of this block of apartments, is a very tall man whose neck and head are taller still. He is to be found often lurking at the entrance door, surrounded with a pack of dogs that might all have been Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. They look rotten, frothy, and hungry. This was how I met them first, and him too, a year ago. Seeing the beasts, I instinctively continued my walk where it should have stopped. From the other side the path seemed clearer. I pathetically made out that I had made a miscalculation after passing the door, but the tall man understood it all. He spoke in German, and then said “Its ok, they’ve already had their breakfast.” Luckily it seems they had their day a long time ago, for under closer inspection these hounds were old and, even if they had preyed upon naive Englishman in the past, had not the will anymore.

It is, however the will of this tall man that continues to haunt me. In recent nights a whipping and a wailing has come from the garden at the back of these apartments. A new dog, clearly young, was crying because the man, appearing from his back door in his dressing gown, would slash it with his belt. It occurred in intervals. And one could never sleep for fear of the sound, the whipping and wailing. It has ceased following the complaints of the residents. But the sound has become part of the air here, and I dread it now while writing. In fact complaints had been made about the dogs before. But we have come to realize, fear the man, not his dog. This is how a Hound of the Baskervilles is made, if not in literature.