I hadn’t been with anyone in three years. Maybe it was the smell. That persistent, sour rot in my breath that no doctor could fix. I tried mouthwash, gum, toothpaste with activated charcoal. Nothing worked. Only garlic helped.
So I had garlic for breakfast. Garlic for lunch. And on days when money was tight which was most days — I had bread and garlic for dinner.
It wasn’t that it tasted good.
It didn’t.
But it masked the stink — the one that pushed people away, especially women.
The garlic didn’t cure the loneliness. But it made it smell different.
I met her at my apartment.
Well — not exactly inside my apartment, but on the fire escape just outside my window. She was beautiful. Huge, and yet delicate.
And I let her in.
Not because I hadn’t had a partner in years, but because a stork landing on your fire escape on a Saturday morning in early summer — that’s not something that just happens.
I didn’t know where it would lead. But it felt magical. Mysterious.
Besides, she pecked at the glass with such stubborn insistence, I couldn’t say no.
At first, I treated her the way anyone would treat a stork. Cautiously, but full of wonder.
She was magnificent — wrapped in white and black feathers, huge wings folded neatly against her sides, long, thin legs that looked like they belonged to another time, another place.
I had just sat down for breakfast. So I offered her some bread and garlic.
She seemed to like it. Then we shared an apple.
I left the window open. She could’ve flown away at any moment.
I didn’t mean to keep her. I was used to loneliness.
But this — this was different. It was… refreshing.
To sit and eat with someone, even if that someone was a stork.
***
That evening, I watched sports — a bit of European football, followed by a recap of the Tour de France. I was so focused on the screen I didn’t notice her at first.
Then suddenly, I felt her press against me.
She had jumped onto my La-Z-Boy, nestled into the side, and tucked her head beneath my armpit — like a small child seeking warmth.
Instinctively, my arm wrapped around her. It was intimate. Odd. Beautiful.
I took out my phone and snapped a selfie. There was no one to send it to.
I’d just been fired from my job at the toiletries warehouse – they said I wasn’t “friendly enough.”
Which was fair. Most of my coworkers kept their distance, claiming I always reeked of garlic. As for my family — well, that was old news.
My parents died in a car crash.
My brother, Morris, got married and moved to South America.
If I was lucky, I heard from him once a year.
There was Aunt Sidi, too — but she was old now, lost to Alzheimer’s.
She didn’t recognize anyone anymore.
I woke up in the morning to find the stork staring straight into my eye.
She’d been waiting, it seemed, patiently — not wanting to wake me.
When she saw I was awake, she jumped off the La-Z-Boy and broke into a joyful little dance. It touched something in me.
We had breakfast together.
I tossed bits of bread into the air, and she caught them like an acrobat.
It was delightful — ridiculous, really — but I hadn’t laughed like that in ages.
Later that morning, I went out to buy a few things.
I left the window open and told her she was free to go — if she needed to migrate somewhere, if she had a mate waiting, or chicks in a nest perched on some electric pole. I told her it had been wonderful having her, that I understood if she had to leave. Still, I promised to bring her something nice to eat.
I had a feeling she wouldn’t care for anything processed.
When I came back, my heart sank.
I placed the bags on the kitchen counter and searched the apartment.
She was gone.
An awful loneliness crashed over me.
I unpacked the groceries in silence.
Bread, several kinds of hard cheeses, all sorts of processed things I used to defrost in the microwave, instant meals — and garlic. Lots of garlic.
I also bought a few small fish at the pet store. They were sealed in two thick plastic bags. I placed them carefully in my old 20-liter aquarium. It was clean. Cleanliness has always been important to me.
Two days passed. I didn’t see her.
I was sure I’d lost her forever.
And yet, I missed her in a strange way — the way you miss a good friend.
Maybe even the way you miss someone new you’ve just met.
Of course, I pushed that thought away the moment it came.
I tried to convince myself it was just the kind of missing you feel for a pet.
Like a dog that died suddenly. Or a cat that ran away.
Still, I held on to hope.
I left the window to the fire escape open, thinking that if she did come back, she’d know this was home.
On the third night after she’d left, I woke in the dark with a start.
I felt someone was in the room.
There was almost no light, but I saw a small figure standing at the edge of my bed.
And something in me knew immediately: it was her.
“I was worried about you,” I whispered.
“Don’t ever disappear like that again without saying anything.”
She stepped closer and settled beside me, laying her head gently on my chest.
I couldn’t explain how, but I knew she was sorry.
I knew she had missed me.
We fell asleep like that, wrapped in my light summer blanket. Held close, we waited for morning, so we could share bread and garlic, and maybe even a fish or two.
Yishay Ishi Ron is an acclaimed Israeli author whose novel DOG was longlisted for the Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award. The book became a national bestseller and is currently being adapted into a feature film by renowned director Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree, Reading Lolita in Tehran). Ron is a former elite combat soldier who lives with severe PTSD. His writing, raw and lyrical, explores trauma, memory, and survival. DOG will be published in English by Soncata Press in October 2025, in a powerful translation by Yardenne Greenspan. The audiobook, narrated by Charles Linshaw and produced by Hi Gravity Media, brings the novel’s emotional depth to life. He is also the author of Holiday Apocalypse (nominated for the Geffen Award), Vincent’s Nose (a bestselling children’s book adapted into an award-winning stage production), and two additional bestsellers for young readers. His work has been praised by Shalom Auslander, Zeruya Shalev, David Bezmozgis, Noa Yedlin, Professor Asa Kasher, and Jacob Appel.
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