He crosses the surgery. “Was that the last?” asks Bev Shaw.
“One more.” He opens the cage door. “Come,” he says, bends, opens his arms.
The dog wags its crippled rear, sniffs his face, licks his cheeks, his lips, his ears.
He does nothing to stop it. “Come.”
Bearing him in his arms like a lamb, he re-enters the surgery.
“I thought you would save him for another week,” says Bev Shaw.
“Are you giving him up?”
“Yes, I am giving him up.”
– J.M. Coetzee
