"You left me no choice but to stay here forever"

"Staunch old Bing—he was a strange dog. Though his heart was with me, he passed me next day with scarcely a look, but responded with alacrity when little Gordon called him to a gopher-hunt. And it was so to the end; and to the end also he lived the wolfish life that he loved, and never failed to seek the winter-killed horses and found one again with a poisoned bait, and wolfishly bolted that; then feeling the pang, set out, not for Wright's but to find me, and reached the door of my shanty where I should have been. Next day on returning I found him dead in the snow with his head on the sill of the door—the door of his puppyhood's days; my dog to the last in his heart of hearts—it was my help he sought, and vainly sought, in the hour of his bitter extremity. "

© "BINGO, The Story of My Dog" by Ernest Thompson Seton

One of my favorite childhood books was Thompson Seton's storybook about wild animals. It was fascinating, because I love animals, and he also described the life in the late 19th century America, and mentioned the Indigenous lore in some of the stories, so it was very interesting to read as a source of learning about different cultures. :)

Some of his stories are very uplifting, about animals who overcame all circumstances against all odds, with help of the good humans or despite all the bad humans. Some are sad, because it's about animals who lost their final battles. For me, the most heartbreaking story is definitely "The Winnipeg Wolf" (oh well, maybe I should build a tribute to it too? no promises, but I'll think about it), with "Lobo, the King of Currumpaw" coming second, and "Bingo, the Story of My Dog" coming third, but all of the three are never fail to make me not just cry, but bawl. I'm a cat person, actually, but I have a very very soft spot for wolves and wolf-like dogs, so I found these stories the most tragic, and not others (sorry, Arnaux the Pigeon! you just had to be an apex predator to make me cry about your death).

So, one of the ideas I wanted to create for a long time was a tribute to the ending of the story of Bingo the Dog, because it's so tragic and beautiful at the same time. I finally had enough time to build such a giant scene it took all the space in my photobox. The dog is a Fenris wolf from Marvel set, I think he's perfect, I can't build an animal better than official Lego designers, and I actually already cast him as another character in my short comic, which was made long ago, but not published yet (I hope to do this eventually). The scene is not an accurate depiction of the scene from the book, because of two reasons. First of all, the translator had taken some liberties with the text, and he omitted such an important detail that Bingo's head was facing the other way (towards the door), I learned about it just now when I searched for the original quote. :(

Second, and more important, is that to make an illustration for the scene from the book was my original idea, but it evolved eventually. You can still interpret this wolf (yes, it's a wolf now) as Bingo, but actually it's not him anymore. And this is not a place from a book anymore. I tried my best to build a house to look like... um... the other house, which is (or at least, was) a real place, though I personally have never been there, but I know it exists somewhere. Or existed.

Anyway, the change was made because, as someone would have noticed from the title, I listened to Taylor Swift again. xD Oh yes, that song has nothing to do with dogs or any other animals, of course! And the dog in Seton's story was not abandoned intentionally. So it's like the two totally different stories with nothing in common, right? Right?

Wrong!

The common thing is that damn feeling of staying in the same spot, frozen in time FOREVER. It really doesn't matter, where or what exactly is happened, my point is about that feeling of being stuck for eternity.

"Help, I'm still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Cross-legged in the dim light
They say, "What a sad sight," I
I swear you could hear a hair pin drop
Right when I felt the moment stop
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on, I, I stayed there
Dust collected on my pinned-up hair
They expected me to find somewhere
Some perspective, but I sat and stared right where

You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever
You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever"

Maybe it's hard to apply to the original story from the book, but it totally fits the actual scene here. Especially because Taylor mentions the exact number, which is actually a very important detail here for me. ;)

"Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Time went on for everybody else, she won't know it
She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy
How it was supposed to be"

Well, so now it's a different story which is both a tribute to the book and song at the same time... That's all I can say. xD

You can listen to the full song here:
Taylor Swift - right where you left me (Official Lyric Video)

Taken on: September 2, 2023

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