Companion

I went on my first long-distance walk in June 2021, when I was living in England. I walked from the start of the TransPennine Trail in Southport to Liverpool, then from Manchester to the beginning of the Pennine Way in the Peak District. The pandemic was a lonely business, and walking can be, too–so I decided to bring along a “dog”. My companion, a child’s plastic Spiderman roller-skate named Dog Marcel (after my cat back in Canada), accompanied me on a leash clipped to my backpack. It rattled, it got filthy, it got caught between rocks and tugged me backwards: it was not a good companion. To my delight, however, it did sometimes attract the attention of real dogs.