Give me a middle!

DJ...that's no fun!


****

All I wanted was a donut. I saw the sloppy human drop the gooey goodness - raspberry filling! My favorite! - onto the floor. I ran to devour it, but he shooed me away and wiped it up with a towel. All that was left was a sticky floor and so I licked it pitifully and absently, my eyes full of remorse and longing. He ignored me, though.

Stupid monkey.

It really is a dog's life.

Could anyone have really blamed me for what happened next? I mean, I know I'm a Great Dane, but the rest of the donuts were on the counter and in my easy reach. All I needed to do was just carefully tiiiiip the box over with my nose which I did. As soon as the human went to the bathroom, WHAM, those donuts were mine. I gobbled them all up and nudged the box near the trash (I'm a good doggie!).

Unfortunately I didn't count on the human wanting another donut. Nor did I realize that all that powdery goodness was on my nose. Nor did I realize that the donuts really were too sweet for my digestion, and I began hacking the donuts back on the carpet.

The human didn't like that very much.

And that's why I'm tied up, outside, in the rain.

*Sigh.*

Well I guess the lord giveth and he taketh away.



New story: "The birds were busy... My father laughed."

 

The birds were busy preening their feathers, mindlessly unaware of the cataclysmic rift forming in the family who's house they had landed on. William Barker, known as Billy Barker Jr to both his family and clients, has seemlessly sliped into his 'helpful professional' tone of voice, which at once was velvety smooth in its reasuring tones and unmistakably threatening to anyone who may wish to interrupt. In the corner stood Jean my little sister. She had always been the fragile one in the family, even when she first came home from the hospital it quickly became apparent that young Jean Barker was not a robust child, as even the slightest bump would send the Barker's new baby into a prolonged sputtering flood of tears. Jean had always held a not-so-secret resentment against Billy Barker Jr's controlling aura. But all those things were old resentments, long forgotten after Jean had married Michael, the young lawyer, who was to become the longest presiding Govenor of the state of Victoria. Yet standing in her father's last earthly dwelling, waiting for him to expire, Jean, despite her grey hairs, now seemed like that frail little girl, helpless as Billy Barker Jr set about guiding Dad's last hours of mortal thought towards leaving his considerable fortune to Billy Barker the third. All of us just stood there - it made no difference that Jean had written seven best-seller novels and was acclaimed as the state's first lady in perpetuity; nor did it make any difference that I was now approaching a golden retirement from fifteen years as rear admiral in Her Majesty's Navy; nor did it make any difference that James' uninspiring debut as a musicitian had eventually seen him at the top of the charts at least eleven times - none of that mattered now. There was Billy Barker, the two-bit real estate agent he was, swindeling his greatest sale - and we were all powerless to do or say anything. Just as Billy was getting to his carefully crafted conclusion and I had already started to turn away in disgust, I heard it. At first I sensed a tone of uncertainty come into Billy's voice - an unfamiliar tone in that voice that had cooly sold termite infested houses to struggling families. It seemed so absurd and foreign, that I dismissed it as my imagination playing tricks on me. But then I heard it again - yes, this time it was unmistakable - Billy had stuttered. Billy never stuttered. Just as I was starting to doubt what I had clearly heard with my sexagenarian ears, the sweetest sound came wafting across the room from a dying man's bed. Billy was now struggling to find his words and it was evident that something had gone seriously wrong in his sales pitch, but even before I had turned back, that surprisingly rich sound filled my ears like the fabled song of the siren. Despite nearly ninety years of wear and tear, weighing him down, the old man in the bed, my father laughed.




Coming to the crest of the hill ... a hand emerged from the rubble.

 

Coming to the crest of a hill, Uncle Fluffy peered sheepishly over the rise and down into a lush valley beyond. He trotted cautiously over and down the scree slope on the other side, through a path of his own making. There had been a rockfall recently, and as he progressed downwards towards the grassy meadows that beckoned him for dinner, he saw a large mound of fallen rocks at the bottom. Upon reaching the base of the mound, he heard a muffled noise coming from within. There was a movement within the stones, and a clattering of loose pebbles trickled down from its source. Uncle Fluffy responded with a resounding "meeeeh", to indicate his presence. Then, suddenly, a hand emerged from the rubble.



new story:

It was the naughtiest day of the year ....

... wiped the mess out of his eye.