Two boys, barely teenagers, found the coats heaped underneath a craggy tree next to the river. Apparently, a few of the trail’s earlier travelers had decided the day was too warm for them after all. Upon the discovery, the youths decided it would be fun to toss the apparently-abandoned coats into the river. Laughing, they made a game of it.

Farther down the trail, a quartet of elderly women exclaimed cries of oh dear as they saw their coats floating, half-saturated, through the frigid river. Though it wasn’t a very wide or deep river, there was simply no way the widows could leave the path and wade in to rescue their winter apparel.

Even father down the trail, two men also noticed the coats drifting along. There was nothing extraordinary about them, just your everyday brown-haired, balding, bearded men, but they felt they should to retrieve the garments. Protected only by Levis and Reeboks, they ventured into the arctic water, where they managed to seize all four.

Sooner or later, the men and the widows’ paths crossed, and coats and thank-yous were exchanged. The men returned home to dry their feet, the women returned home to dry their coats, and the boys returned home to decide on a video game.

The river continued down its avenue, eroding the banks, grain by grain. A bud, the first of spring, emerged from the tree’s highest branch. And as the sun cooled and set, the boys fell asleep in their beds, where they’d awaken one day older.

This is a true story I read in my local newspaper, (slow news day, I suppose) back when such things existed. It’s lingered in my mind over the years because of its reminder that people are a work in progress, that boys do mature into men, and we are all of us in a state of growth.

“He smells bad,” the sour-faced child snivels. A chocolate milk mustache sullies her upper lip.

If dogs could roll their eyes, Alfred’s would’ve seen his own saggy eyebrows. Call him smelly? If only she knew how rank her body was. From hairy head to sweaty toes, it was a bouquet of unpleasant odors. The mother had tried to smear and swath the stenches away with manufactured deodorants and shampoos, but Alfred’s nose wasn’t deceived. If anything, the stew of mixed odors was even worse.

“You could give him a bath,” the stout shelter worker offers. Her round face smiles, squeezing her eyes into crescents. “Wouldn’t that be fun? Giving your own dog a bath?”

The girl aims her petulant face upward and pinches it into a tight scowl. “Mo-om, I don’t want a smelly old dog. Where’s the puppies?”

The mother’s glands produce a sulfurous scent--the scent of anxiety. “Do you have any puppies available?” she asks. “We were thinking something just ready to be adopted in time for Christmas next month.”

“Are you sure you don’t want Alfred?” the shelter worker implores. “He’s waited so long for a home.”

“We’re sure,” the mother insists as a wail emerges from the girl’s mouth.

They leave, the wail tapering into silence. Except for occasional visitors and feeding times, Alfred’s world is made up of silence.

It didn’t used to be though. He used to have a home, a family. It was just the two of them, Alfred and Sonja. Sonja smelled of lemon tea and cocoa butter. They took walks at sunset and she would throw the ball.... But then she got too old for that. So they stayed inside and Sonja would caress his ears and tell him he was handsome. But then she got too old for that. And then one day the smell of lemon tea and cocoa butter withered away, and the next, he was discarded.

Huffing, he collapses onto his side. He’s beginning to accept this as home. His cold-steeled, hard-floored, humdrum home. The bell on the front door chimes. Another visitor looking for puppies.

He ignores the soft voices that speak, the light footsteps that approach… him? The door swings, stirring up a mild breeze. Alfred’s nose twitches; a memory triggers.

The world had turned brown and chilled. Darkness comes early these nights. But Sonja frolicks through the bright kitchen, chopping and whisking a cacophony of delectibles while the pots steam cheerily. Alfred observes from a comfortably tattered rug. The scent of roast turkey marinates the air and titillates every taste bud.

The visitor peers into Alfred’s kennel; the aroma of turkey strengthens. “Well aren’t you a looker?” the man’s timbre voice croons.

Unbidden, Alfred rises to his feet, tail shimmying in an almost-forgotten way. The man crouches and unlatches the kennel door. Alfred snuffles at his beard, and the scent of the roast bird mingles with the scent of happiness. Gratitude flows from his nose down to his wagging tail.