“Scooter!” I called. 

And called again. And again. Not in his bed. Not on our bed. Not on the sofa, the closet floor beside my sock stack, or lying on the office carpet. I started lifting edges of bedspreads until under the third bed, I found him. Not trembling, but certainly stressed. Head low, body tight, whites of eyes exposed.

“It’s that sound,” signaled his body.

“Ah, Scooter, it’s terrible, isn’t it.” 

Relentless fire warnings exploded in every room from ceiling speakers. Three torturous bursts of sound. BZAAFF!! BZAAFF!! BZAAFF!!  Three assaulting A-above-middle-C tones followed by a stern, full volume, male voice roaring from ceiling speakers in every room. Loud enough to knock you over. 

“A fire has been detected in the building. BZAAFF!! BZAAFF!!  BZAAFF!! Prepare for further instructions. ”BZAAAFF!! BZAAFF!! BZAAFF!!” Scooter and I heard it hundreds of times, and to no avail, at least hundreds of times we begged it to be done. This was a test of a Fire Warning system. Only a test. 

Scooter lives in an apartment complex complete with dogs, cats, birds, who knows, maybe a turtle or Guinea pig, and adults over the age of fifty-five. Ours is a several storied building, not altogether unlike some frequently seen now in news programs; Ukrainian apartment complexes blown to bits, shredded to skeletal shells. 

I lay flat on the floor beside the bed where Scooter found refuge. We, he and I, nose to nose, my hand on his paw, comforting while no comfort was possible. BZAAFF!! BLAAFF!! BZAAFF!! A fire has been . . . .” 

I thought of a scene I saw recently on TV: Ukrainian apartment buildings flayed of their flesh, innards spilling to the streets, colorless, lifeless, abandoned. The camera swept from one side of the street to the other, from one bomb blasted building to another; you know, in case you didn’t catch the extent of carnage on the first sweep. But then, I saw what I wish I hadn’t: dogs. Three beautiful dogs in the street, family animals, noses to the ground, to the air, smelling terror, stepping off circles of confusion. 

BZAAFF!! BZAAFF!!  BZAAFF!!  What has happened here? Where are my people? Where is home? Why these smells of destruction and death?

How many minutes or hours ago were these dogs under beds, sheltering against sounds of air-raid alarms, of high-pitched incoming missiles, of shattering glass and collapsing concrete? 

How can we who watch bear the evil of one, and the suffering of millions—Ukraine’s people, its animals—domestic, agricultural, caged in zoos, and wild? How can we who watch stupid Award shows, or the best basketball ever, who complain about gas prices, and politics, and people that tic us off; who have electricity, water, walls, and paved roads to hospitals, whose dogs are stressed by sounds sent to protect us; how can we not step off circles of confusion as we shout to gods or the universe for grace, for judgment, for peace, for relief, for retribution, for understanding, for compassion, for whatever it takes to stop human madness? Three dogs in a street, millions fleeing. Three dogs in a street, millions fleeing. How can we not understand looking for a bed to crawl under?

“Ah, Scooter,” I said. “This terrible noise will end soon, and we will take a long walk.”