Tag Archives: dog

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

From Whence You Cannot Awake

He could not get comfortable. He wasn’t in pain, just slightly uncomfortable. The cushions were soft and the couch was spacious but he kept shifting his weight, unsuccessfully trying to find a spot where he could relax. His neck hurt and he felt fat. His shoes were too tight but the floor was cold and he didn’t want to take them off. The TV was blaring on about some horrific war and his moronic team losing again while the market kept falling and inflation kept rising.

Perhaps it was the stressful, unfulfilling day at work cramping his neck and back into painful spasms. Maybe he had drunk too much coffee trying to motivate himself to be productive during the day? Maybe he’d just snacked on too many nuts and chocolates just now trying to make himself feel good?

Maybe it was just a shit world and he hated being alive?

“Shall we get some takeout?” he asked his wife next to him on the couch, “Maybe a pizza?” As he said it, he regretted saying the words. They really should be trying to eat healthily. And they spent too much money on takeaways. They should really be trying to save money as the cost of everything just kept rising but his salary stayed flat.

His wife barely acknowledged him, she was staring transfixed at the TV. Why was she so interested in the rubbish on that box, he wondered?

“Sure, honey,” she mumbled, “Whatever you want.”

He nodded, wholly unsatisfied at the answer. The moment he started ordering, she would change her mind. He knew this as it always happened.

“OK, Dominos’ has a special on–” he started before she interrupted him.

“Why don’t we pop to the shop and get some healthy stuff? Maybe we cook tonight?”

He nodded, knowing that this was the right thing to do. He too tired to argue. God, he really did not feel like cooking. Or leaving this couch, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

“I’ll drive,” he said, standing up and moving to get his car keys, “Let’s be quick. I have an early day tomorrow. Breakfast meeting across town. God, why do people organize such things? Fucking hate breakfast meetings.”

All he wanted to do was relax. Or get comfortable. He was so tired he could sleep right then and there, but he knew the moment bedtime came he would lie awake, tossing and turning, as he worried about work and bills and this nightmare that he was trapped in…

***

“And that’s how it works, really,” said the shimmering being of light, “Good ones transcend and bad descend, locked in The Physical.”

There was an audience of light around the shimmering being that was speaking. The light rippled in celestial colors so beautiful the angels themselves would weep if they saw them.

“Yes,” the Shimmering Being said, its voice pure heavenly music that blessed the very air it traveled through, “I’ll take one more question and then we really need to be getting on to the next cosmic lesson.”

“What exactly is The Physical?” asked a swirling essence of pure light, glimmering dreams whirling in its infinite depths, “You keep saying that the bad ones get sent down to The Physical, but what exactly is it and why is it so bad?”

The Shimmering Being glowed. Perhaps it was smiling or laughing but the process was so breathtakingly beautiful that civilizations would have gladly died for the mere privilege to glimpse such a thing.

“Good question,” it began, picking it words carefully, “The Physical is a lower Plane than ours. It is most horrific in torturing those stuck in it. Not only does it fix their forms into heavy, slow, painful dark-material, but it also offers just enough good to make the bad that much worse. There is only one escape from The Physical, but its trap is so complete that its victims almost never escape. They keep clinging to the good while the bad keeps torturing them.”

***

His phone’s alarm cut through his dreams and, groggily, he flicked the snooze and rolled over. Then he remembered his breakfast meeting.

Fuck, he thought, I really do have to get up. Traffic was going to be horrendous. His wife was asleep next to him and he leaned over the kissed her, mildly jealous that she got to sleep in and slightly horny because they had not had sex in weeks.

Sighing, he rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom. He had a headache and his neck and back ached. Actually, he felt worse than when he had gone to bed last night. How was that possible? Wasn’t he suppose to feel better after a good night’s sleep?

Fucking bullshit, he thought to himself.

At that point, a strange, fuzzy memory popped into his mind. Had he dreamt about shimmering beings and clouds of infinitely beautiful light? Some cosmic eternity? He could not remember what they had told him? Or had he actually been one of them? It is was agonizingly beautiful and, strangely, his soul ached and longed for whatever it was that he had glimpsed in his dreams…

What the fuck, he thought, as he flushed the toilet and wandered downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He felt terrible. He wished he was dead, or, at least, still asleep.

Fucking bullshit, he thought to himself again.

Sighing, he put the kettle on. His dog trotted up, muzzling him gently with her snout. He leaned down and patted her. She gazed up at him, pure love in her eyes, and he smiled.

Life wasn’t that bad. Surely, work would get better and his wife did love him, he was sure. Maybe tonight they would make love? Life wasn’t that bad, he just had to get through this rough patch and things would get better. He was sure of it.

Fantasy, General Fiction, Romance

Long Road

The old car did not have a radio in it. Its growling engine was so loud that he was not sure he would have been able to hear any music anyway. Instead, he leaned back in his cracking leather chair and watched the world slide by, tree after tree.

Outside the wilderness stretched for miles. Rugged mountains poked through endless pine trees broken only by the weathered, old road he was following. Mist swirled through the air pierced only occasionally by the Sun and endless sky far above.

He felt like a voyeur, peering at one of Mother Natures’s untouched places. Despite the growling car engine and the crunch of its tyres on the old, weathered road, he felt like he had to be quiet. If he spoke, he might break the spell.

Soft mist slept in the valleys serrated by rolling, rugged pines. He would disappear into these gullies as the road dipped down. It was like he briefly disappeared into another world where sight ended, closed by the sudden thick mist around him. Even the sound of the vehicle was dampened down there. But then the road rose from the valley and he would break out of the mist into the cold, crisp morning.

This would go on again and again as he drove along miles and miles of that old road.

Eventually, he came to a fork in the road. No other cars and not a living soul had crossed his path for hundreds–perhaps thousands–of miles out here. So he brought the car to a growling stop in the middle of the road. He let it idle while he decided what direction to drive.

He thought of what existed a world away from this mystical wilderness. He thought of the beings that he loved and that had loved him. He remembered the wooden, slightly run-down cabin he had grown up in and how his mother smelt. He remembered the pine trees and the cold winter months. He remembered the girl that lived in the big city he had studied at. He remembered the final time he had seen his parents. He thought of all his demons and the evil that lurked in all men’s hearts. He thought of the loneliness of one soul and the warmth of friendship. He thought of loyalty and loss. He thought of the beauty of peace and the nastiness that drove the world forward.

He had no answers, only thoughts. But, just perhaps, that was alright all the way out here. Perhaps that was the answer.

Far above, the Sun slipped over its zenith and slid towards the jagged horizon, criss-crossed with mountains and pine trees. He barely noticed time passing. The air still felt cool and wet. A pine and dirt smell permeated this air, and the fragrance only intensified as a soft, scotch mist began to fall as the afternoon stretched out.

But still, he sat at the crossroad deciding which path to take.

Did it matter which path he chose? Would the world change at all? Would his loss ever ease? Where were the wolves? Where was the wild? Where was his friend?

Eventually, his grip on the steering wheel tightened, he put the car in gear and pulled off. He was going down the path that he was always going to be going down. He was always going to choose this path. It was the old familiar path, but he had never driven it for this reason before.

It was late at night by the time he reached the old, run-down log cabin. Far above, unpolluted by city lights and human noise, the jewel-encrusted cosmos displayed itself. Swirling, endless galaxies and stars twinkling dramatically in their silence as they gazed down on this small, insignificant world.

They were the silent witnesses as Mother Nature was the stage.

He turned the car’s engine off and it stuttered and ground to silence. The door creaked open and he stepped out, crunching the gravel ground below his boot.

“I am going to miss you.”

It was the first words he had said all day. Or forever? Definitely for hundreds of miles. Time moved differently out here, or through the fog of his thoughts. The words seemed to echo in his ears, but it may not have been the sound that echoed, but the memories.

“I am going to miss you,” he said again, embracing his voice as he walked around the back of the car and popped the boot, “But I cannot go where you are going now.”

In the car’s boot was a shovel and an old, blue blanket covering something. The something looked like a curled up, unmoving form. It was dead still. It was small enough to be a child, or a best friend. He reached down and gently pulled the blanket back, revealing the body of an old sheepdog.

“I am going to miss you, my old friend,” he said, tears coming to his eyes as he bent into the boot to gently scoop the body of his old pet out, “But, at least, out here you will have lots of space to run around in. You remember this place? There is so much space, so much more than our little house in the noisy city. There are wolves and there is wilderness for you, my friend. Wolves and wilderness…”

And, far above, the cosmos and its countless stars and galaxies silently peered down. Tears streamed down his face, as he buried his childhood dog behind his childhood home at the end of the long road.

General Fiction

My Silent Friend

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Sometimes the world gets so loud. I work in an open-plan office, which is another word for hyper-extroverted socially-engineered hell. Open-plan offices are always full with prying strangers buzzing around you, incessant small talk and constant social pressure with waves of noise. I walk outside sometimes, but the office is right in the middle of town and the sounds of the city replace those of chattering co-workers and ringing phones.

I have never liked this level of noise, but since my wife left me it is hard to deal with. We were not married long, but it was long enough for my entire life pattern to change. My routine was no longer going out drinking and having fun, it was now staying in cooking and watching series. My hobbies were no longer partying with friends, it was seeing the in-laws and shopping for groceries. I was no longer the fun-loving one in the office that was able to make a couple jokes, I was the serious husband providing for his family.

And then she left.

Open-plan offices are like the communal showers of the business world, everything just hangs out there. It could not have been half a day and the world knew I was being divorced. There are the one or two who ask you directly, but the majority just whisper it to each other and glance at you out of the corner of their shitty little eyes. All you want to do is quietly get on with whatever work you have to do, but people are constantly buzzing around you and often pulling you into their little conversations; who won the game, what are your weekend plans, did you hear about Pete, do you think it is going to rain, what about the memo, did you get the email, check out the notice board…

So I endured the noise of the open-plan office. And then, later, stuck in traffic, I endured the noise of the congested city. I could do all of that because the moment I opened the door to my empty house, it was not at all empty.

My silent friend is there.

He comes–like he always came–bounding up to me, all fur and licking. His excitement is tangible, but he does not interrogate me with questions nor hoot at me for answers. Tail wagging furious behind him, he jumps to lick my face with sheer ecstasy.

I laugh and shut the door behind me. I drop my bag on the table and crouch down to hug and pat him. He is a fantastic, regal beast with a comical flair. His rich coat frames his athletic form and his warm brown eyes just pour pure love into this world. I feel a little guilty that it was my ex-wife that had wanted to get him. I had argued with her at the time but I had eventually given up. It was the best argument I have ever lost.

I walk through to the kitchen and he trots behind me. I feel the warmth and happiness flowing from him. His noisy, smelly friend is home! Yay! Perhaps he should be the one working in the open-plan hell, I think briefly, chuckling to myself.

I check and refill his water just outside the kitchen door. Then I take out his food and fill up a large bowl with a generous helping of it. He sits patiently while completely and utterly focussing on my every movement. Almost like it is independent of him and his thoughts, his tail is wagging furiously behind him as he waits for me to give him the bowl of food.

I grab a microwave meal for myself while he is guzzling down his daily nourishment. I am tired of cooking and cooking for one feels quite pointless, so I just guzzle down my microwave meal and move through to the lounge. Here I slide onto a couch and put on some soft TV. I do not put just any channel on. No. I have been subject to noise the whole day, so I put on one of the music channels and soft rock starts to float through the room.

He jumps up onto the couch, licks my face with his smelly breath and curls up next to me. I smile and stroke his coat. He looks up and I scratch behind his ear. I can feel him smiling. I slide back in the chair and close my eyes.

He begins to softly snore. It is a rhythmic sound that rises and falls in regular intensity. I feel his comfortable weight pressing against me. The soft music on the TV flows into another song. Outside in the night, the city is still there and the open-plan hell still awaits me tomorrow morning. But, for now, I am at peace at home with my silent best friend. And, as I start to fall asleep, I realise that I am smiling.

General Fiction

Go Fetch!

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dog fetch

Throw it…

Come on, just throw it!

Wait, wait, wait… He’s gonna throw it now. Now. Now… 

Now!

He threw it! He threw it! He threw it! Oh, wow, what a shot! Go! Go! Go! Come on, come on, I almost got it. Almost got it. Almost. Almost. Wait… And…

I got it! I got it! 

And the crowd goes wild in the stadium. What a great catch and what a great game.

Later that evening when he is home, he throws the ball for his dog and shakes his head. The dog bounds off immediately, focussed entirely on this small, moving object in a vast wide universe. They are such simple creatures, he thinks, that such simple, pointless activities give them pleasure.