MISHTI Zine

My dog is nervous. She depends on those who make her feel safe. In the evening, she won’t eat unless my mother or I am standing near her. She will periodically look up to check that we are still there. 

While I was away, she became very fat. Her body is constructed in a haphazard way. From some angles she looks her age— four— and conforms to the cute look of a Labrador Retriever. But when you look at her from the side, it looks as if her spine has been hung like a suspension bridge between her shoulders and hips. It sways when she walks, her abdomen rolling from side to side. Widdle Waddle Widdle Waddle.  

Mishti has an instinct for power. If put in the middle of a circle of people, she would know who there has the upper hand. This is what saves her in every situation. Even though she has no knowledge of herself, she understands what she sees in the world around her. 

Mishti is most often lying down. She contorts her body into convoluted positions while falling asleep, and trembles throughout her sleep. Mishti has spent almost all of her life in the house, met very few people or dogs, and has experienced only a handful of significant events, and so it is difficult to say what she could be dreaming about.

She seems unbothered. She is a very expressive creature, but when she trembles or is vomiting, she does not show any feeling on her face. Her main concern is to be near us. When she waits at the top of the stairs for someone to either settle downstairs or come back up, she cocks her head to one side and looks very worried. 

Mishti gets rashes and bumps on her skin in the summer. Mosquitoes attack her because she is low to the ground where the insects like to wait. She scratches at the bites till her fur is worn down and her coat is pocked with wounds. She likes to be outside when it is raining and eats clumps of mud, which make her vomit. Mishti has various personal shortcomings, the most important of which is that she has no self-awareness other than the most basic sense of proprioception, and so has an untempered personality. When she is angry, it comes out of the blue and she does not realise that her anger is unearned, and more urgently, that she does not have the strength to face the consequences of her feelings so eagerly expressed.