Belly

When two dogs fight for ascendancy, the loser lies on its back, wagging its tail, baring its underbelly as a sacrifice. The topdog does not kill it but, instead, pisses on it.




My brother Wystan pissed in my shoes once, the reason being that, the day before, I had poisoned his two fish: he had a gleaming white pancake fish and a cerulean blue one, both an inch in diameter, almost perfectly round with the width of a silver half-dollar. He would boil and strain out a red peat moss, pour it into their tank until it was a deep roiling umber. The murky smell prevented them from becoming homesick. He had said he never wanted me to see his fish or to come near them. So I poured a cupful of salt in the tank. The next morning, he found them belly up.
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