Post It

nine

The first being that comes to me it’s a small dog, it comes running at full speed and starts jumping around me, asking for attention. I kneel and bury my hands in its long grey hair, scratching behind its ears and baby talking to it. Its tail waves franticly and it makes me laugh.

“Hey you,” I say still playing with it.

“This is Lulu,” Orlando explains. “She’s been here four months and she’s not a year old, so she’s full of energy.”

“Oh hi there, Lulu. Aren’t you a cute one, look at that tail moving and moving. Oh yes, you’re a cute one,” I tell her as she puts her little paws on my knees and tries to lick my face. I lean in closer and offer her my cheek that she immediately licks. “Oh kisses, how lovely. Thank you very much,” I say and it seems that my words make her even happier.

“She likes you a lot,” Orlando tells me. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the other guys here.”

I stand up but Lulu stays next to me, demanding attention once again and I can’t take a step forward without her trying to make me fall so at the end I grab her in my arms and she’s so happy that the only way she finds to thank me is to give me more kisses. I just laugh and follow Orlando.

He introduces me to every one in there. Amelia, Rick, Stuart, Noelia, Leah and Derek. Amelia and Derek are Uni students like me, Rick and Stuart have families and regular jobs —Rick is a teacher and Stuart a policeman— and Leah and Noelia go to college. They are all nice and I can tell they love animals as much as Rosalind and Orlando do, which is wonderful. They also introduce me to every dog and cat around, but they are many and I can’t remember all their names immediately. Needless to say, Lulu monopolises me and I know that when I get home today Oddie will be jealous. He will smell Lulu’s scent and will steal my trousers or something. Like when I met Charlie, Mila’s dog, Oddie stole my trousers and slept on them. At least he didn’t try to pee on them like Charlie when Mila met Oddie.

There are many cats and I think Havi and Moni would be so happy here. Mila would also go nuts with all the cute dogs here. If they come to visit I’ll bring them here, I’m sure they would love it.

After a while, Rosalind comes back and when she sees me playing with Lulu, making her burn all the energy, she smiles happily at me.

“You having a good time?” she asks and I smile back.

“A great time. Lulu’s been demanding my full attention, though. She doesn’t let me play with the others.”

“Oh yeah, she’s quite possessive,” Rosalind laughs. “She also likes… him quite a lot. When he comes to help Lulu is all over him and he can’t do much. She follows him everywhere,” she chuckles as she tells me the story and I would like to imagine him playing with Lulu but I have no idea what he looks like. I only see a blurry silhouette of a guy wearing normal clothes. Does he have long or short hair? Blond, brown or black? Maybe he’s bald.

“Will you come back with him later? I bet Lulu would be ecstatic to have you both here. Or maybe she could pass out, when dogs get too excited they lose control sometimes,” she tells me and I chuckle, not because I don’t believe her because I do, once I saw a video of a dog passing out due to her sheer happiness, but because I don’t know what else to do.

“I want to come back,” I say but I don’t know if I’ll come back with my stranger.

H —if H is the letter with which his name starts— is doing all this for me but nothing grants me that once we meet we’ll keep in touch. We might never speak again or maybe we’ll go back to the post-its because that’s the only way this works. Maybe once we meet we won’t have anything to talk about or it’ll be too awkward.