Part 1: The Last Ride
He didn’t know the fifty-dollar steak I just hand-fed him was his execution meal, or that I planned to follow him into the dark before sunrise.
“Is he still eating?”
The waitress didn’t look at me. She looked at the grease on the table.
“He’s finished,” I said. My voice sounded like gravel. It hadn’t been used much lately.
Buster licked the paper plate clean. He looked up at me with those cloudy, amber eyes and thumped his tail against the diner booth. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of pure, unadulterated trust.
It felt like a knife twisting in my gut.
“That’ll be fifty-two dollars,” the waitress said. She tapped her pen against her pad. She was young, maybe twenty. She had her whole life ahead of her. She didn’t have time for a seventy-two-year-old man in a frayed suit feeding a filet mignon to a Golden Retriever mix.
I counted out the cash. It was the last of the grocery money.
It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t need groceries after tonight.
“Let’s go, buddy,” I whispered.
Buster struggled to stand. His back hips were bad. Arthritis, the vet said. Another reason, I told myself. I was doing this for him. I was being merciful.
But as I helped him into the passenger seat of my rusted sedan, I knew I was lying.
I wasn’t killing him because his hips hurt.
I was killing him because I was a coward.
Tonight, after I returned to my empty, freezing apartment, I was going to take the pills I’d been hoarding for six months. I was done. The world had moved on, and I was just a ghost haunting a city that no longer remembered my music.
But if I went, who would take Buster?
I had called the shelters.
“We’re at capacity,” they said.
“He’s twelve years old? He’s unadoptable,” they said.
“If you surrender him, sir, you need to know… he will likely be euthanized within 48 hours.”
I couldn’t let that happen.
I couldn’t let my best friend—the only living soul who had looked at me with love since my wife, Martha, died—die alone in a cold, concrete cage, surrounded by strangers, wondering where I was.
I wouldn’t let him wait for me. I wouldn’t let him be afraid.
I would hold his paw. I would be the last thing he saw. It was the only gift I had left to give.
We drove through the city. The Christmas lights were up, mocking me. Bright reds and greens reflecting off the dirty slush on the road.
Buster stuck his nose out the window just a crack, sniffing the cold air. He seemed so happy. He thought we were going to the park.
My hands shook on the steering wheel.
A honk blasted behind me. I drifted into the other lane.
“Watch it, grandpa!” a driver screamed as he swerved around me.
I gripped the wheel until my knuckles turned white. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
For a split second, panic flooded me. I almost crashed. I almost hurt him.
The irony was bitter. I was terrified of him getting hurt in a car accident minutes before I paid a doctor to stop his heart.
We pulled into the parking lot of the clinic. The sign buzzed with a flickering neon light: City Veterinary Hospital – 24 Hours.
It looked less like a hospital and more like a prison.
Buster hesitated getting out of the car. He smelled it. The antiseptic. The fear. The death.
“Come on, boy,” I choked out. “It’s okay. Daddy’s here.”
He looked at me. He didn’t want to go. But he trusted me. So, he stepped out into the snow.
The waiting room was packed. A woman was crying in the corner, holding an empty leash. A man was arguing about a bill on his phone. A young girl with bright pink hair was livestreaming her pug, talking loudly to a screen.
I walked to the reception desk. I felt like a murderer walking to the gallows.
The receptionist didn’t look up. “Name?”
“Arthur Vance,” I said. “And Buster.”
She typed something into the computer. Click. Click. Click. The sound was deafening.
She stopped. Her eyes scanned the screen, then flicked up to meet mine. Her expression changed. It wasn’t pity. It was cold, professional detachment.
“Ah, yes. The 8:00 PM appointment.”
She pulled a form from a drawer and slapped it on the counter.
“Standard procedure,” she said, her voice loud enough for the people in the front row to hear. “This is the consent form for euthanasia. It states that you are the legal owner, that the animal has not bitten anyone in ten days, and that you authorize us to terminate the life of the animal.”
The room seemed to go quiet.
I felt eyes on my back. The girl with the pink hair lowered her phone and looked at me. The crying woman stopped sobbing to stare.
They were judging me.
They saw an old man in a cheap suit killing a dog that could still walk. They didn’t see the empty bank account. They didn’t see the eviction notice in my pocket. They didn’t know about the pills waiting on my nightstand.
They just saw a monster.
“Sir?” the receptionist pressed. “I need a signature.”
My hand hovered over the paper. The pen felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
Buster leaned against my leg. He let out a soft whine, not from pain, but from unease. He nudged my hand with his cold, wet nose.
He was comforting me.
Tears pricked my eyes, hot and stinging. I can’t do this, a voice screamed in my head.
You have to, the darker voice answered. Unless you want him to die alone in a shelter next week.
I gripped the pen. I pressed the tip to the paper. The ink started to bleed into the fiber, a small, black stain that was about to spread and cover everything.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” I whispered, so low only he could hear.
I started to sign.
End of Part 1
Part 2: The Waiting Room of Judgment
The ink on the page was still wet when I handed the clipboard back. I felt lighter, but not in a good way. It was the weightlessness of a man who has just cut the rope holding him to the cliffside. I was falling now. There was nothing left to grab onto.
I walked back to the plastic chairs lined up against the wall. They were hard, uncomfortable, designed to keep people from lingering, even though waiting was all anyone did here. I sat down, my joints popping audibly in the quiet room. Buster curled up at my feet, resting his heavy head on my shoe. His tail gave a weak thump against the linoleum floor. He hated these floors. They were too slippery for his old paws.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I murmured, reaching down to scratch the soft spot behind his ears. “Not much longer now.”
The waiting room was a purgatory of fluorescent lights and hushed anxieties. The air smelled of bleach, wet fur, and that metallic tang of fear that animals secrete when they know they are trapped.
Across from me, the girl with the pink hair—I mentally called her ‘Neon’—was still at it. She had shifted her position, angling her phone so that I was visible in the background of her shot. I could see the ring light clipped to the top of her device reflecting in her glasses.
“…so sad, you guys,” she was whispering, but it was a stage whisper, projected specifically for her microphone. “It’s just heartbreaking how some people treat their pets. Like, animals are family, right? You don’t just give up on them because they get old or inconvenient.”
My hand froze on Buster’s head.
She wasn’t talking about herself. She was talking about me.
She glanced at me, then back at her screen, her face contorting into a mask of performed sympathy. “I mean, look at him,” she continued, gesturing vaguely in my direction. “That dog looks fine. He walked in here. And now he’s just… disposing of it. Probably wants to go on vacation or something without the hassle. People are monsters.”
A hot flush of shame crawled up my neck, burning my ears. I wanted to scream. I wanted to stand up and shout, “I am doing this because I love him more than my own life! I am doing this because I am dying tonight, and I won’t let him rot in a cage!”
But I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t.
If I told her the truth—that I was planning to end my own life—she would call the police. They would come. They would take me to a psych ward and take Buster to the pound. The very nightmare I was trying to prevent would come true.
So I sat there, swallowing the bile in my throat, letting a stranger with a smartphone paint me as a villain to thousands of invisible viewers. I accepted the role. If being the villain was the price for Buster’s peaceful exit, I would pay it.
I looked down at Buster. He didn’t know he was being livestreamed. He didn’t know he was a prop in someone else’s moral superiority complex. He just knew I was there.
I closed my eyes and let the sounds of the clinic fade. My mind drifted back six years.
It was a Tuesday. It was raining—that freezing, horizontal rain that cuts right through your coat. I had been sitting on a park bench, drenched, a bottle of cheap whiskey in a brown paper bag between my knees. Martha had been gone for three months. The silence in the apartment was so loud it made my ears ring. I had decided that night was the night. I was going to drink the whiskey, walk into the river, and let the current take me.
Then I heard it. A rustling in the trash can next to the bench.
I thought it was a rat. I kicked the can. “Get lost,” I’d slurred.
A wet, golden head popped out. He was skinny then, ribs showing through matted fur, shivering so hard his teeth chattered. He didn’t run. He just looked at me. He looked at the bottle in my hand, then up at my face, and he whined.
It wasn’t a beg for food. It sounded like a question. Are you okay?
He crawled out of the trash, limped over to the bench, and despite being soaking wet and filthy, he laid his head on my knee. Right over the bottle.
I couldn’t drink with him there. I couldn’t walk into the river with a witness.
I took him home instead. I dried him off with Martha’s favorite towel—she would have yelled at me, then laughed. I fed him a can of tuna. I named him Buster because he had busted my plans.
He saved me that night. And every night for six years, he saved me again. When the royalties dried up, when the session work stopped calling, when my son stopped answering the phone—Buster was there. He was the anchor keeping my drifting ship from crashing into the rocks.
And now, I was cutting the anchor loose.
“Mr. Vance?”
The voice snapped me back to the present. The receptionist was waving me over.
I opened my eyes. Neon was still filming, but she had moved on to showing off her pug’s new rhinestone collar.
I stood up. Buster groaned as he pushed himself up.
“Stay here, boy,” I told him. “Just a second.”
He sat back down, watching me with those patient eyes. He knew the routine. We waited, I talked to humans, we waited some more.
I walked to the desk, my legs feeling heavy. The receptionist held out a portable credit card terminal.
“We need to settle the bill before the procedure,” she said without looking up. “The total is three hundred and fifty dollars. That includes the cremation services you selected.”
I nodded. Three hundred and fifty dollars. The price of a peaceful death.
I reached for my wallet. My hands were shaking so bad I fumbled with the leather. I pulled out my debit card—the blue one with the faded numbers. I knew exactly how much was in there. I had checked three times before leaving the house. Three hundred and eighty-two dollars. It was enough. Just barely.
I inserted the chip.
Processing…
The little wheel on the screen spun.
I held my breath. Behind me, a cat hissed in a carrier. A door opened, and a vet tech walked out carrying a black trash bag. A heavy one. My stomach turned. That would be Buster in twenty minutes. Just a bag. Just biological waste.
Beep.
A red light flashed on the machine.
DECLINED.
The word stared at me in harsh, pixelated block letters.
The receptionist sighed, a sound of practiced impatience. “It didn’t go through, sir. Do you have another card?”
“That… that’s impossible,” I stammered. “I checked the balance. There’s money in there.”
“Maybe it’s a daily limit? Or a hold?” She shrugged. “Try it again if you want.”
I jammed the card back in. Please, I begged silently. Please don’t do this to me. Not now.
Processing…
Beep. DECLINED.
“Sir,” the receptionist said, her voice hardening. “We can’t proceed without payment. It’s policy.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. I turned around. The waiting room was watching. Neon had lowered her phone and was staring openly now. The woman who had been crying was looking at me with pity.
I was seventy-two years old. I had played piano on records that won Grammys in the 70s. I had been a father, a husband, a provider. And now, I was standing in a veterinary clinic, unable to pay to kill my dog, while a stranger livestreamed my humiliation.
The walls started to close in.
Part 3: The Cost of Release
“I have cash,” I said. My voice was a whisper, brittle as dry leaves.
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Cash is fine.”
I didn’t have cash in my wallet. I had to go out to the car. I had to go to the glove compartment.
“I… I need a moment,” I said.
I turned and walked back to Buster. He wagged his tail, thinking it was time to leave. “Not yet, buddy,” I said, my voice cracking. “Stay.”
I walked out of the clinic, into the biting cold wind. The automatic doors slid shut behind me, cutting off the warmth. I marched to my car, opened the passenger door, and popped the glove box.
Inside, buried under a stack of unpaid parking tickets and a faded map of the state, was a white envelope.
On the front, in my shaky handwriting, was the word: Landlord.
Inside was four hundred dollars.
It was everything I had left. It was the money meant to pay for my final month of rent—a gesture of apology to my landlord so he wouldn’t be out of pocket when he found my body. I wanted to leave with a clean slate. I didn’t want to owe anyone anything.
I stared at the envelope.
If I used this, I would die a debtor. I would leave a mess behind. Another failure in a life full of them.
But if I didn’t use it, Buster would suffer.
The choice wasn’t even a choice.
I grabbed the envelope. My fingers were numb, not just from the cold. I felt like a thief, stealing from my own funeral expenses.
I walked back inside. The warmth of the clinic hit me like a physical blow. The smell of antiseptic seemed stronger now, more choking.
I walked up to the counter and dumped the crumpled bills onto the high surface. Twenties, tens, a few fives. They were old, soft bills that had circulated through a thousand hands.
“Here,” I said.
The receptionist didn’t blink. She counted the money with efficient, snapping motions. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“Three hundred and fifty,” she confirmed. She typed something into her computer. The drawer popped open, and she swept my life savings into the darkness of the register.
“You’re all set, Mr. Vance,” she said, handing me a receipt. “Room 4 is busy right now. The doctor will be with you in about fifteen minutes. Please take a seat.”
Fifteen minutes.
I had bought fifteen minutes.
I walked back to my chair. Buster greeted me with a soft nudge to my hand. I sat down heavily. The adrenaline of the payment crisis faded, leaving me hollowed out and trembling.
I looked at the receipt in my hand. It didn’t say “Release from suffering.” It said Euthanasia – K9 – >50lbs. It looked like a grocery receipt.
The sheer banality of it crushed me.
I looked around the room again. Neon, the influencer girl, was typing furiously on her phone now. Probably captioning her video. “Sad old man can’t afford vet bills. #Heartbreaking #RescueDontShop.” She didn’t know. She couldn’t know that I was paying for this with the last shreds of my dignity.
Across from me, the door to one of the exam rooms opened. An older woman stepped out.
She was small, dressed in a thick wool coat that looked too big for her. She was carrying a plastic cat carrier, but the way she held it—loosely, swinging by her side—told me instantly that it was empty.
Her face was dry, but her eyes were red-rimmed. She didn’t look at anyone. She walked to the empty row of chairs opposite me and sat down. She placed the carrier on the seat next to her, patting the top of it gently, as if the animal were still inside.
She stared at the wall, at a poster explaining the importance of dental hygiene for dogs.
I knew that stare. It was the Thousand-Yard Stare of the survivor. The look of someone who has just watched the lights go out in a pair of eyes they loved, and now has to figure out how to navigate a world that is suddenly darker.
I pulled Buster closer to me. I wrapped my arm around his neck, burying my face in his fur. He smelled like old dog and the lavender shampoo I had used this morning.
“I love you,” I whispered into his neck. “I love you so much.”
Buster licked my cheek.
The clock on the wall ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Every second was a thief.
To distract myself, I listened to the sounds of the room. The receptionist’s typing. The low hum of the vending machine. And the radio.
Someone had changed the station.
When I first walked in, it was playing some generic pop music—loud, thumping bass that rattled the nerves. But now, it had switched.
It was a jazz station.
A soft, melancholic piano intro drifted through the speakers. It was slow, hesitant, like rain dripping from a gutter.
My head snapped up.
I knew that chord progression. It was an E-flat minor seventh, moving to a suspended A-flat. It was a weird transition. Clunky. Unorthodox.
I knew it was clunky because I was the one who played it.
My heart hammered against my ribs, harder than when I almost crashed the car.
It was “Midnight in Memphis.”
A B-side track from a session I did in 1982 for a saxophonist named Coleman Black. Coleman died of an overdose three years later. The album flopped. I hadn’t heard this song in forty years. I didn’t even own a copy of it.
Why was it playing here? Now? In a veterinary clinic in the middle of a snowstorm, fifteen minutes before I killed my dog?
The piano continued, weaving a sad, smoky tapestry in the air. I remembered the studio. The smell of stale cigarette smoke. The way Coleman nodded at me when I hit that high note. I remembered thinking, “This is it. This is the one that makes us famous.”
It didn’t.
But hearing it now, it didn’t sound like a failure. It sounded like a ghost. A ghost from a time when I was alive.
I looked at Buster.
He was lying flat on the floor, chin on his paws. But as the saxophone entrance kicked in—a low, mournful wail—Buster’s ears twitched.
One ear swivelled back. Then the other.
He lifted his head.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the speaker mounted in the ceiling corner.
Buster was a quiet dog. In twelve years, I had heard him bark maybe five times. He never howled. Not at sirens, not at other dogs.
But as the saxophone climbed higher, reaching for a note of pure longing, Buster opened his mouth.
A sound came out. Not a bark.
It was a low, melodic croon. A hum that vibrated in his chest.
The room went silent. The typing stopped. Neon stopped tapping on her phone.
The saxophone dipped low, and Buster’s voice dipped with it. He was matching the pitch.
I stared at him, my mouth agape.
He threw his head back, eyes closing, and let out a long, haunting howl that harmonized perfectly with the radio. It wasn’t the sound of a dog. It was the sound of a soul crying out.
It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I had ever heard.
End of Part 3
Part 4: The Song of the Forgotten
The room didn’t just go quiet. It froze.
The air in the waiting room, previously thick with the sounds of nervous animals and hushed conversations, was now vibrating with a sound that shouldn’t exist.
Buster’s head was thrown back, his throat exposed, his eyes squeezed shut. He wasn’t howling like a wolf calling to the moon. He was singing.
He was holding a B-flat. A perfect, unwavering B-flat that matched the saxophone solo pouring out of the ceiling speakers.
I sat there, paralyzed. My hand was still resting on his flank, and I could feel the rumble of his chest against my palm. It was a deep, resonant vibration, like a cello being bowed by an invisible hand.
“Midnight in Memphis.”
The song continued to play. My piano part—the one I had recorded in a smoky studio in 1982 for fifty bucks and a sandwich—wove underneath the saxophone. I remembered that day. I remembered the way Coleman Black, the saxophonist, had looked at me through the glass of the recording booth. He had nodded, just once. A silent signal that we had found the magic.
We thought we were going to be stars. We thought that record would change everything.
It sold less than five hundred copies. Coleman overdosed three years later. I went back to teaching piano to bored teenagers. The magic died in the clearance bin of a record store.
Or so I thought.
Now, forty years later, in the last fifteen minutes of my dog’s life, the magic was back.
Buster shifted his pitch. The saxophone went up a third, and Buster followed it. He didn’t miss a beat. He slid up to the note with a soulful slur that would have made Coleman jealous.
“Oh my god,” someone whispered.
I looked up. The girl with the pink hair—Neon—was on her feet. She had moved closer, her phone held out like a weapon. The ring light reflected in her wide eyes.
“Are you guys seeing this?” she was saying to her screen, her voice breathless. “The dog is literally singing to the radio. This is insane. This is viral gold.”
She stepped closer, encroaching on our space. She was invading the most private, holy moment I had ever shared with my dog.
I wanted to shove her away. I wanted to cover Buster’s ears.
But I couldn’t move. I was too mesmerized by my own dog.
Buster had never heard this song. I didn’t own the record. I never played it. How did he know? How did he know exactly when to rise and when to fall?
Was it the frequency? Was it just a coincidence?
Or was it something else?
I looked at his face. He looked… peaceful. The pain in his hips seemed to vanish. The fear of the vet clinic was gone. He was lost in the music, just like I used to be.
For a moment, the shabby waiting room faded away. The smell of bleach was replaced by the smell of old vinyl and whiskey. I wasn’t an old man about to commit suicide. I was a musician. And Buster was my band.
We were playing a duet. Me on the keys (from the speakers), him on the vocals.
The song began to fade. The saxophone wound down, a slow, dying spiral of notes. My piano outro tinkled softly—a simple, melancholic arpeggio that I had improvised on the spot because I didn’t know how else to end the song.
Buster let out one last, long note. It started strong, then tapered off into a soft whimper as the music died.
He lowered his head. He opened his eyes and looked at me. His tail gave a single thump.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Then, the clapping started.
It was scattered at first. The receptionist. The man in the corner. Then Neon joined in, clapping one-handed while keeping her phone steady.
“That was amazing!” Neon squealed. “Sir! Sir! What’s his name? Can you make him do it again? My chat is blowing up!”
I blinked, the spell breaking. The reality of where we were came rushing back. The white walls. The consent form signed in the trash. The clock ticking down.
“No,” I croaked. “He… he doesn’t do tricks.”
“That wasn’t a trick!” Neon pressed, stepping closer. “That was talent! We need to get this on TikTok. Do you have an account? We can tag you.”
“Please,” I said, my voice shaking. “Leave us alone.”
She rolled her eyes, muttering something about “boomers” to her audience, but she stepped back.
I looked down at Buster. He was panting slightly, exhausted by the performance. I stroked his head. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, buddy?”
“It was beautiful.”
The voice was soft, trembling. It didn’t come from the girl.
It came from the empty chair opposite me.
I looked up. The older woman—the one with the empty cat carrier—was staring at me. She wasn’t filming. She wasn’t clapping.
She was crying.
Tears were streaming down her face, tracking through the powder on her cheeks. She was gripping the handle of her empty carrier so hard her knuckles were white.
“That song,” she whispered, her voice hitching. “That was ‘Midnight in Memphis’.”
My heart stopped.
Nobody knew the name of that song. It wasn’t on the charts. It wasn’t on Spotify playlists. It was a ghost.
“How…” I started, but my throat closed up.
She stood up. She was small, frail, but her eyes were locked on mine with an intensity that terrified me. She walked across the aisle, ignoring the social distance, ignoring the girl with the phone.
She stopped right in front of me. She looked at Buster, then at me.
“My husband,” she said, the words spilling out like they had been held back for decades. “He proposed to me with that song. 1982. We were in a dive bar in Chicago. He put a quarter in the jukebox and said, ‘Listen to the piano, Evie. Listen to the sadness in it. That’s how I’d feel without you.'”
The world tilted on its axis.
She wasn’t just hearing a song. She was hearing me.
She was talking about the notes my twenty-year-old fingers had played. She was talking about the emotion I had poured into those keys because I was lonely and broke and thought I would never make it.
And a man I never met had used my loneliness to tell a woman he loved her.
I stared at her, stunned speechless.
“I haven’t heard that song in thirty years,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue she pulled from her sleeve. “He died ten years ago. I thought… I thought I’d never hear it again.”
She looked down at Buster.
“And then your dog sang it,” she whispered. “He sang it for me.”
End of Part 4
Part 5: Two Ghosts in the Machine
“I played it,” the words left my mouth before I could stop them.
The woman—Evie—froze. She looked at me, her eyes widening behind her glasses. “What?”
“The piano,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. It was the voice of Arthur Vance, the musician, not Arthur Vance, the failure. “The sadness in the keys. That was me.”
She stared at me. For a second, I thought she wouldn’t believe me. Why would she? I was just an old man in a frayed suit sitting in a veterinary clinic waiting to kill his dog. I didn’t look like an artist. I looked like a tragedy.
But she looked at my hands. My fingers were long, slightly crooked now from age, but they were still piano player’s hands.
“You’re… the session player?” she breathed.
I nodded. “It was a B-side. Coleman Black on sax. Me on keys. We recorded it in one take.”
Evie slowly sat down in the chair next to me. The empty cat carrier sat between her feet, a silent tombstone to her own morning.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “Henry—my husband—he tried to find the record for years. He wanted to play it at our 50th anniversary. But we couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“It went out of print in ’85,” I said. “I don’t even have a copy.”
“But you played it,” she said, a smile breaking through her tears. It was a fragile, beautiful thing, that smile. “You created the soundtrack to the happiest moment of my life.”
I felt a crack in the armor I had built around my heart.
For years, I had told myself my life was a waste. I had created nothing of value. I had left no mark on the world. I was going to die, and the only thing I would leave behind was a stack of unpaid bills and a dead dog.
But here was this woman. A stranger. Telling me that something I did forty years ago had mattered. That my pain had become her joy.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching out and placing her hand on my arm. Her hand was warm. “Thank you for that.”
I looked at her hand on my sleeve. It was the first time another human being had touched me with kindness in… I couldn’t remember how long.
“Hey!”
The sharp voice shattered the moment like glass.
Neon was standing over us again. She had her phone pointed right at our faces.
“Are you guys talking about the song?” she asked loudly. “That is so cute! Can you say that again for the stream? ‘The soundtrack to my life.’ That is such a good soundbite. Wait, let me get a thumbnail.”
She crouched down, angling the phone to get Buster, me, and Evie in the frame.
“Smile!” she commanded.
Evie recoiled, pulling her hand back. The warmth vanished.
“Please,” Evie said, her voice trembling. “We are having a private conversation.”
“Everything is content, grandma,” Neon laughed, but it was a hollow, robotic sound. “Look, my viewers are loving this. They’re sending stars! This dog is going to be famous. You should start an Instagram for him right now. ‘The Singing Dog.’ I can help you manage it. We could get a sponsorship with Chewy or something.”
She was talking about sponsorships.
I was sitting there, counting the minutes until I paid a doctor to stop my dog’s heart, and she was talking about monetization.
A surge of anger, hot and unfamiliar, rose in my chest. It wasn’t just annoyance. It was rage. Rage at the shallowness of it all. Rage at a world that only saw value in things if they could be clicked, liked, or sold.
Buster wasn’t “content.” He was a living soul. He was my best friend. And he was dying.
“He’s not going to be famous,” I said, my voice low and dangerous.
Neon didn’t catch the tone. She was too busy reading comments on her screen. “Don’t be like that. You’re sitting on a goldmine. Seriously, if he can sing like that on command—”
“HE’S DYING!” I roared.
The shout ripped through the waiting room.
Neon flinched, nearly dropping her phone. The receptionist stood up. The entire room went dead silent.
I stood up, my fists clenched at my sides. I was shaking.
“He is not content,” I spat at the girl. “He is not a viral video. He is my dog. And in ten minutes, he is going to be dead. Because I can’t…”
I choked. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t admit the poverty.
“…Because he’s sick,” I finished weakly. “So take your camera and get out of my face.”
Neon stared at me, her mouth open. For the first time, the screen didn’t matter. She looked terrified. She looked like a child who had accidentally walked into a funeral.
She lowered the phone. “I… I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She scurried back to her seat, shoving her phone into her pocket.
I stood there, panting, my heart racing. I felt exposed. Raw.
I looked down at Evie. I expected her to be horrified by my outburst.
But she wasn’t looking at me with horror. She was looking at me with understanding.
She knew. She saw the desperation in my eyes. She saw the lie I had almost told.
“He’s not sick, is he?” she asked softly.
I looked at Buster. He was wagging his tail, looking between me and Evie, happy to be the center of attention.
I slumped back into the chair. “His hips are bad,” I said, defensive.
“My hips are bad,” Evie said. “I’m not on death row.”
She leaned in close. “Why are you doing this, Arthur? A dog that sings like that… a dog that looks at you like that… he’s not ready to go.”
I looked at her. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her about the empty apartment, the pills, the fear of the shelter.
But before I could speak, the heavy metal door at the end of the hallway opened.
A vet tech in blue scrubs stepped out. He held a clipboard. He looked bored.
“Arthur Vance?” he called out. “Buster?”
The sound of my name was like a gavel coming down.
Time was up.
The magic was over. The music had stopped.
I looked at Evie. Her eyes were pleading. Don’t go, they said.
I looked at the vet tech. Let’s get this over with, his stance said.
I looked at Buster. He stood up, painfully but eagerly, assuming it was finally time to go to the park.
I had to choose.
I could stay here, with this woman who remembered my music, and face the crushing reality of my life tomorrow. Or I could walk through that door, end it all, and find peace.
I stood up. I took the leash.
“Goodbye, Evie,” I said.
I didn’t wait for her answer. I turned my back on the only person who had really seen me in forty years, and I led my singing dog toward the killing room.
End of Part 5
Part 6: The Cold Room
The door to Exam Room 4 clicked shut, sealing us inside.
The silence here was different from the waiting room. Out there, it was the silence of anxiety. In here, it was the silence of finality.
The room was small, sterile, and terrifyingly cold. A stainless steel table sat in the center, gleaming under the harsh LED lights. It looked less like a medical instrument and more like an altar.
“Lift him up, please,” the technician said. He didn’t offer to help. He was busy typing on a laptop in the corner, logging the start time of the procedure.
I looked at Buster. He was sniffing the base of the table, his tail tucked slightly between his legs. He smelled the pheromones of the thousand dogs who had died on this table before him. He knew this wasn’t a check-up.
“Come on, buddy,” I whispered.
I bent down. My back protested, a sharp shot of pain that I ignored. I wrapped my arms around his chest and hindquarters. He was heavy—seventy pounds of warm, living weight. I grunted as I hoisted him onto the cold metal.
Buster scrabbled for traction, his claws clicking frantically against the steel. He hated being up high. He looked at me, eyes wide, trembling.
Trust me, his eyes said. I don’t like this, but I trust you.
I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
The door opened again, and the doctor walked in. Dr. Miller. He was young, tired, with dark circles under his eyes and a stain on his white coat that looked like coffee. He didn’t look like a grim reaper. He looked like an overworked mechanic.
“Mr. Vance,” he said, glancing at the chart. “Buster. Twelve years old. Golden mix.”
He didn’t ask why. The paperwork was signed. The fee was paid. In this city, people put down pets for less: moving to a no-pet apartment, a new baby, a divorce. He stopped asking “why” years ago. It made the job easier.
“Have you been through this before?” Dr. Miller asked, pulling a pair of latex gloves from a box on the wall. Snap.
“No,” I lied. I had. With Martha’s cat, fifteen years ago. But I couldn’t remember it. I had blocked it out.
“Okay,” Miller said efficiently. “I’m going to explain what happens. First, I’ll give him a sedative to relax him. He’ll fall asleep in about five minutes. Once he’s unconscious, I’ll administer the second injection. That stops the heart. It’s painless. It’s very quick.”
Painless.
Will mine be painless tonight? I wondered. I hoped so. I hoped the pills were as efficient as Dr. Miller.
“Ready?” Miller asked. He held a syringe filled with a clear liquid. The sedative.
I looked at Buster. He was panting, his breath puffing out in little clouds in the cold room. He leaned his head against my chest, seeking warmth.
“Wait,” I said. My voice cracked.
Dr. Miller paused, the needle hovering inches from Buster’s leg. He sighed, a microscopic release of breath through his nose. He was on a schedule.
“Take your time,” he said, but his body language said hurry up.
I buried my face in Buster’s fur. I breathed him in. The smell of dust, of old dog, of the life we had shared.
“You’re a good boy,” I whispered into his ear. “The best boy. You saved me, Buster. You hear me? You saved me.”
Buster licked the tears off my cheek.
“I’m sorry I can’t save you back.”
The guilt was a physical weight, crushing my lungs. I was betraying the only thing that loved me. But the alternative—the shelter, the cage, the fear—was worse. This was the lesser of two evils. That’s what I kept telling myself.
I pulled back. I nodded to the doctor. “Okay.”
Dr. Miller moved in. He grabbed Buster’s front leg. Buster flinched, but I held him steady.
Prick.
The needle went in. Buster didn’t yelp. He just looked at me, confused.
“There,” Miller said, capping the needle. “Now we wait. He’ll start to get groggy.”
The minutes stretched out, agonizing and slow.
Buster’s panting slowed. His head began to droop. His legs splayed out slightly on the metal table. The fight was leaving him.
“He’s fighting the sedative,” Miller observed, checking his watch. “Strong heart.”
“He’s a survivor,” I said softly.
Finally, Buster’s chin hit the table. His eyes were half-open, glazed and unfocused. He was still there, but he was drifting.
“He’s ready,” Miller said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the second syringe. This one was larger. The liquid inside was bright pink.
The Pink Juice. The end of the line.
Miller uncapped it. He found the vein in Buster’s leg again.
“Say your last goodbyes, Mr. Vance.”
I gripped Buster’s paw. It felt limp.
“Goodbye, my friend,” I choked out. “I’ll see you soon. I promise. I’ll be right behind you.”
Miller positioned the needle. His thumb rested on the plunger.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch the light go out.
Creak.
The sound wasn’t the needle. It was the door handle behind me.
“STOP!”
The scream was shrill, desperate, and loud enough to make Dr. Miller jump. The needle slipped, scratching Buster’s skin but not entering the vein.
I spun around.
Standing in the doorway, breathing hard, her coat askew and her glasses fogged up, was Evie.
End of Part 6
Part 7: The Echo of a Melody
“You cannot do this!” Evie shouted. She stepped into the room, ignoring the “Authorized Personnel Only” sign on the door.
Dr. Miller looked furious. “Ma’am, you can’t be in here. This is a sterile procedure. Get out.”
Evie didn’t look at the doctor. She looked straight at me. Her eyes were blazing with a mixture of anger and terror.
“Arthur,” she said, her voice shaking but firm. “Look at him.”
I looked from her to Buster. He was heavily sedated, his head lolling on the table, but the noise had roused him slightly. His eyes flickered. He let out a low, confused groan.
“He’s asleep, Evie,” I said, my voice dull. “Go away. Please. Don’t make this harder.”
“Harder?” She marched up to the table, standing on the opposite side of me. She put her hand on Buster’s flank. “You aren’t doing this because he’s sick. You’re doing this because you’re giving up.”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Miller interrupted, stepping between us. “Who is this? Mr. Vance, do you know this woman? If she’s not family, she needs to leave immediately or I’m calling security.”
“I’m his…” Evie hesitated. “I’m his conscience.”
She turned back to me, ignoring the doctor’s threat. “I heard you, Arthur. In the waiting room. You said, ‘I’ll be right behind you.’ I read lips. My husband was deaf in one ear; I learned to read lips forty years ago.”
My blood ran cold.
She knew.
“You’re not just ending his life,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “You’re clearing the decks. You’re tying up loose ends.”
“Shut up,” I whispered. “You don’t know me.”
“I know Midnight in Memphis,” she fired back. “I know the man who played those notes has a soul. And I know that man wouldn’t kill a healthy dog unless he felt he had no other choice.”
“Ma’am!” Dr. Miller barked. “Security is on the way.”
“Let her speak,” I said. The authority in my voice surprised even me.
Miller paused, looking from me to Evie. He lowered the syringe, but didn’t cap it. “You have two minutes. Then I’m clearing the room.”
Evie took a deep breath. She reached into her oversized coat pocket. I thought she was going to pull out a phone, or a weapon.
She pulled out a leash. A red nylon leash with a small, jingling tag.
“This was for the dog I was going to adopt today,” she said. “I came here to find a friend because my house is too quiet. Because I talk to the walls. Because sometimes I forget the sound of my own voice.”
She looked down at Buster, stroking his fur. The sedative made him heavy, but he leaned into her touch. Even in his drug-induced haze, he sensed a friend.
“I can’t save you, Arthur,” she said softly. “I don’t know your demons. But I can save him.”
She looked up at me. “Give him to me.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?” I asked.
“Sign him over to me,” she said. “Right now. Don’t let him die just because you’ve decided to. That’s not fair. That’s not… that’s not the music.”
“He’s old,” I argued weaky. “He has arthritis. He needs expensive food.”
“I have a pension,” she said. “I have a ranch house with no stairs. I have a fenced yard.”
“He… he howls at night,” I lied.
“I have hearing aids. I can turn them off.”
She was dismantling every excuse, every wall I had built to justify my decision.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you want an old man’s burden?”
“Because he sang my husband’s song,” she said simply. “And because he loves you. A dog that loves like that deserves to live out his days in the sun, not die on a cold table.”
I looked at the pink syringe in Dr. Miller’s hand. It looked like poison now. Before, it had looked like mercy. Now, it looked like a mistake.
I looked at Buster. If I died tonight, and he went with Evie… he would live. He would sleep on a rug. He would be fed. He would be loved.
But I wouldn’t be there.
The thought of him living without me was a sharp, jealous pain. It was selfish. I realized then how incredibly selfish I had been. I wanted him to die so I wouldn’t have to miss him. I wanted him to die so I wouldn’t have to worry.
“Mr. Vance,” Dr. Miller said, checking the clock. “The sedative is peaking. If we don’t administer the euthanasia solution in the next three minutes, he’s going to start waking up, and he’ll be disoriented and distressed. We need to make a decision. Now.”
The pressure was a physical weight.
Evie held out the red leash. Her hand was trembling. “Please, Arthur. Let the music play a little longer.”
I looked at her hand. I looked at the doctor.
I reached out and took the red leash.
“Doctor,” I said, my voice steady for the first time all day. “Cap the needle.”
Dr. Miller blinked. He looked annoyed, but also relieved. He capped the pink syringe with a loud click.
“You’re stopping?”
“I’m transferring ownership,” I said. “Is there a form for that?”
“There is,” Miller sighed, shoving the syringe back into his pocket. “But you still have to pay for the exam and the sedation.”
“I paid for the euthanasia,” I said. “Keep the difference.”
I turned to Evie. I placed the red leash in her hand. Our fingers brushed.
“He likes his food with a little warm water,” I said, my voice breaking. “And he’s afraid of thunder.”
Evie gripped the leash tight. “I know. I’ll take care of him.”
She looked at me, searching my face. “And what about you, Arthur? Who takes care of you?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just looked at Buster, sleeping peacefully on the table, unaware that he had just been traded from death to life.
“Take him,” I whispered. “Before I change my mind.”
End of Part 7
Part 8: The Long Walk Home
The door to the exam room clicked shut behind me, but this time, I was on the outside.
I stood in the hallway for a moment, listening. I could hear the low murmur of Dr. Miller’s voice and Evie’s soft, reassuring tones. I couldn’t hear Buster. He was likely already asleep, drifting into a drug-induced nap that would end in a warm bed, not a furnace.
He was safe. I had done the right thing.
So why did I feel like I had just carved out a piece of my own chest?
I walked down the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the linoleum. The waiting room was emptier now. The influencer girl—Neon—was gone. The crying woman was gone. It was just the receptionist, typing away at her station.
She looked up as I approached. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw I was alone. No dog. No carrier. Just an old man with an empty leash in his hand.
“Mr. Vance?” she asked, her voice softer than before. “Is it… done?”
I looked at the leash coiled in my grip. The red nylon was frayed where Buster liked to chew on it.
“He’s going home,” I said hoarsely. “Just not with me.”
I didn’t explain. I pushed through the double doors and stepped out into the night.
The cold hit me like a physical slap. The snow had stopped falling, but the wind had picked up, cutting through my thin suit jacket. It was freezing, bitter, and indifferent.
I walked to my car. It sat alone under a flickering streetlamp, a rusted heap of metal that was my only remaining asset.
I opened the door and sat in the driver’s seat. The leather was stiff with cold. The smell hit me instantly—wet dog, old upholstery, and the faint, lingering scent of the steak I had fed him an hour ago.
I looked at the passenger seat. It was empty.
For six years, that seat had been occupied. A wet nose fogging up the window. A heavy head resting on the center console. The sound of panting.
Now, it was just a dark, empty space.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills. The orange plastic rattled. The “exit strategy.”
The plan was simple. Go home. Drink the whiskey I had left on the counter. Take the pills. lie down on the bed I had made up with fresh sheets. Go to sleep.
It was a clean plan. Logic dictated that nothing had changed. I was still broke. I was still alone. I was still a relic of a forgotten era.
But as I stared at the bottle, my hand started to shake.
I had saved Buster. I had given him a future.
But in doing so, I had witnessed a miracle. I had heard my own music—my own soul—broadcast into the world and answered by a stranger. Evie. She had looked at me and seen Arthur the Musician, not Arthur the Failure.
If I died tonight, that connection died with me.
I gripped the steering wheel.
“Start the car,” I commanded myself. “Go home. Finish it.”
I turned the key. The engine sputtered, coughed, and died.
I tried again. Click. Click. Click.
The cold had killed the battery.
I sat there in the silence, laughing. A dry, humorless rasp. Of course. The universe had one last joke to play. I couldn’t even drive to my own funeral.
I slumped back against the seat, closing my eyes. I was trapped. Too far to walk in this temperature. No money for a tow truck.
I was going to freeze to death in a parking lot. Maybe that was poetic justice.
Then, I saw movement in the rearview mirror.
The clinic doors opened. Evie struggled out.
She was bent double, straining, dragging the heavy, limp form of Buster. He was awake but groggy, his legs splaying out on the icy sidewalk like a newborn deer’s. He was too heavy for her.
She slipped on a patch of ice. She went down on one knee, dropping the leash.
Buster didn’t run. He just stood there, swaying, confused, looking around into the darkness.
He wasn’t looking for the car. He was looking for me.
I watched as Evie tried to stand up, rubbing her knee. She grabbed Buster’s harness and tried to lift him into the back of her station wagon. She pulled, her face grimacing with effort. He didn’t budge. He was seventy pounds of dead weight.
She was going to hurt herself. She was going to slip again, break a hip, and lie there in the snow.
And it would be my fault.
I looked at the pill bottle in my hand. Then I looked at the old woman and my dog struggling in the snow.
“Damn it,” I whispered.
I shoved the pills into the glove box. I slammed it shut.
I opened the car door and stepped back out into the cold.
End of Part 8
Part 9: The Symphony of Second Chances
“Let me get that,” I said.
Evie jumped. She had been trying to hoist Buster’s rear end onto the tailgate, her breath coming in short, white puffs. She spun around, clutching her chest.
“Arthur?” she gasped. “I thought you left.”
“Car won’t start,” I muttered, not meeting her eyes. “Battery’s dead.”
I walked past her. I bent down and scooped Buster up in my arms. He let out a soft grunt of recognition. He rested his chin on my shoulder, his tail giving a weak, drug-fueled thump against my back.
He felt warm. Alive.
“Up you go, buddy,” I grunted, sliding him gently onto the blanket-lined cargo area of Evie’s wagon.
He curled up instantly, closing his eyes. He was safe.
I straightened up and brushed the snow off my coat. The wind whipped around us, stinging my face.
“Thank you,” Evie said. She was looking at me with that same intensity she had in the waiting room. Analyzing me. “You were going to walk home?”
“I was going to sit there until I froze,” I admitted. It was half-true.
Evie looked at my rusted sedan, then back at me. She didn’t ask about the battery. She didn’t offer to call AAA.
“My house is three miles away,” she said. “I have a pot of beef stew on the stove. It’s too much for one person.”
I looked at her. I hesitated.
“I don’t want to intrude,” I said. The pride of the old man flared up one last time. “I’m not a charity case, Evie. I just… I had a bad run.”
“I know,” she said. She stepped closer. “And I’m not a soup kitchen. I’m a woman who just adopted a seventy-pound dog with bad hips and a talent for jazz. I can’t lift him out of this car when we get home, Arthur. I can’t get him up the porch steps alone.”
She paused, her eyes locking onto mine.
“I need help,” she said. “I can’t do this by myself.”
It was a lie. Or maybe it wasn’t. But it was the most gracious thing anyone had ever said to me. She wasn’t offering to save me. She was asking me to be useful.
She was giving me a job.
I looked at the glove box of my car, where the pills were waiting. They would always be there. But Buster needed to get up those porch steps tonight.
“Beef stew?” I asked.
“With dumplings,” she smiled. “And I have a piano. It hasn’t been tuned in five years, but it works.”
I looked at my hands. They were numb with cold, shaking slightly. Could they still play? Really play?
“I can tune it,” I said softly. “I have a good ear.”
“I know,” she said. “I heard the record.”
She walked around to the driver’s side. “Get in, Arthur. It’s freezing.”
I stood there for one last second. I looked at my car—my coffin. Then I looked at the warm yellow light inside Evie’s station wagon. Buster was in there. The music was in there.
I turned my back on the sedan. I left the pills, the eviction notice, and the silence behind.
I opened the passenger door and climbed in.
The car smelled like lavender and old books. It smelled like life.
Evie put the car in gear. As we pulled out of the parking lot, she reached over and turned on the radio.
It wasn’t jazz this time. It was just the weather report. A storm warning.
“Looks like we’re in for a heavy night,” she said.
I looked back at Buster, sleeping soundly. Then I looked at Evie.
“Let it snow,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
End of Part 9
Part 10: The Encore (Epilogue)
One Week Later
The video had 4.2 million views.
I stared at the screen of the tablet, trying to comprehend the number. It was just a number, abstract and impossible, like the distance to the sun.
“Read the comments, Arthur,” Evie urged. She poured more tea into my cup. We were sitting in her kitchen—a bright, cluttered room filled with plants and the smell of cinnamon.
I scrolled down with a hesitant finger.
@JazzCat88: “That howl hit my soul. Who is the pianist? That track is fire.” @SarahSmiles: “The way the old man looks at his dog… 😭 You can feel the love. I’m sobbing.” @VinylJunkie: “Wait, is that Arthur Vance? The session guy from the 80s? He’s a legend! I thought he died years ago.”
“They know me,” I whispered. “How do they know me?”
“Because Neon—Chloe—posted your name,” Evie said. “She did a ‘Storytime’ video explaining what happened. She felt bad about judging you. She linked your old discography.”
I looked over at the living room. Buster was lying on a thick orthopedic rug in front of the fireplace, chewing happily on a rubber toy. He looked younger. His coat was brushed and shiny. He wasn’t just surviving; he was thriving.
And so was I.
I wasn’t “cured.” The darkness was still there, lurking at the edges of my mind in the quiet hours. But it wasn’t consuming me anymore. I had a routine. I walked Buster (slowly) every morning. I tuned Evie’s piano. I cooked dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I had a purpose.
The doorbell rang.
Buster’s ears perked up, but he didn’t bark. He just thumped his tail.
Evie went to answer it. A moment later, she came back, followed by a young woman with pink hair.
It was Chloe (Neon). But she wasn’t holding a phone in front of her face this time. She was holding a large cardboard box.
“Hi, Mr. Vance,” she said sheepishly. She looked smaller without the screen barrier. “I… uh… these came to my PO Box for you. From the viewers.”
She set the box on the table.
I opened it.
Inside were bags of premium dog food. Supplements for joint health. A warm winter coat for a large dog. And at the bottom, a stack of letters.
“And,” Chloe said, digging into her pocket, “this is from a label in New York. Blue Note Records subsidiary. They want to re-release ‘Midnight in Memphis’. They want to know if you have any other unreleased tracks.”
I froze.
Forty years. I had waited forty years for that sentence.
I looked at Evie. She was beaming, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Well?” she said. “Do you?”
I thought about the box of tapes under my bed in the old apartment—which Evie had helped me clear out yesterday. Hours of music that I thought was trash. Music born from loneliness.
“I might have a few,” I said.
Chloe grinned. “Awesome. Can I… can I film you playing? Just a snippet? People want to hear the ‘Piano Man’ live.”
I looked at the piano in the corner. It was an old upright Steinway, scarred and scratched, but I had tuned it to perfection over the last three days.
I stood up. My knees creaked, but I felt strong.
I walked to the piano. Buster stood up, abandoning his toy, and padded over to lie under the bench, resting his head on my foot.
I sat down. I placed my hands on the keys.
The silence in the room was different now. It wasn’t the silence of death. It was the silence of anticipation.
“Ready?” Chloe asked, raising her phone.
I looked at Evie. She nodded.
I looked at Buster.
“This is a new one,” I said. “It’s called ‘Buster’s Song’.”
I pressed the keys.
The melody was simple at first—sad, like a gray winter sky. But then, my right hand found a major chord. A ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds. It shifted, grew warmer, building into a rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat.
It was the sound of a second chance.
Buster let out a contented sigh against my foot.
I played. I played for the lost years. I played for the empty seat in the car. I played for the woman who saved me.
And for the first time in a long time, the music didn’t just fade away into the dark. It echoed. It filled the room, and through the phone lens, it flew out into the world, weaving a symphony that would ensure neither of us would ever be solitary again.
The End
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This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment and inspirational purposes. While it may draw on real-world themes, all characters, names, and events are imagined. Any resemblance to actual people or situations is purely coincidenta