Chapter 4 - Post Basco
After Basco, nothing could hold me back if there was a dog nearby. I was still terribly afraid of them, but at the same time I was almost magnetically attracted to being near the bridged clock power that I could - and still can - sense in them.
Whatever it was about the Greek street dog we met on the beach during the holidays on Samos, or the big shepherd dog my aunt got a couple of years later, I had to sit over or sit next to them, even if it made the blood thump in my ears every time.
In elementary school, my best friend for the first few years was a boy named Oliver, and one of the greatest joys of visiting him was his dog Edvard.
Edvard was a great English jumper and a few lucky nights he settled in my footing, though he usually always left us Oliver. Then I barely closed my eyes because of equal parts joy and fear. Then I lay there in the darkness in the strange boy's room… awake while I could feel Edward's warm soft fur with my bare toes and hear his calm and heavy breathing, and was almost happy. I was completely silent not to wake him and maybe risk him jumping to Oliver.
When we played with Edvard in Oliver's garden it was often the "sock-play" we resorted to - a game that, in all its simplicity, consisted of clutching a sock in the back pocket or belt and having Edvard chase the sock. So I wandered around the garden with the big hunting dog right in the heels until it got a good grip on me and got me down and shrugged off the sock. Each time I feared it might bite me right, but it never happened.
Once upon a time, however, both Oliver and I were injured as a result of our relationship with Edvard. One summer day we were out walking with him in the woods, but when we were little boys of 7-8 years and he was stretched like a bear, it was probably closer to him walking with us. At one point he notices something he is keen to grab and then he sets off in a wild hunt through the woods, with both Oliver and me hanging behind him at the end of the leash. Up and down the ditches and through dense bushes it went and in the end we had to let go, so as not to seriously injure. Fortunately, Edvard came back to us after a few minutes of picnic and today it is a happy dog ​​memory among many!
My first boyfriend's parents also had a dog and even though the teenage love back then was very much in my young boy's body, there was still plenty of room to look forward to seeing the dog too when I went home to visit her. The dog was named Viktor, but you must not ask me what my boyfriend was then… :-)