They used to have an apartment.
That was the first thing Mark said when they asked him why he rocked his dog like a baby every night. Now they sleep wherever they can, and the world that once stayed outside the windows now surrounds them without a filter: horns, sirens, footsteps, voices. For his dog, each of those nights is a battle against the noise.
He knows it. That’s why, before thinking of his own rest, he wraps his dog in his arms and rocks him slowly, with the same patience as someone soothing a child with a fever, until the little body gives in to sleep. Only then does he close his eyes too.
He has no roof, no bed, and no certainty about the next day. But he has this: the decision that his dog will never sleep afraid as long as he can prevent it. Sometimes love doesn’t need a roof. It only needs someone willing to stay awake a little longer.
