Flash Fiction Friday

I think it was his photograph that made me…

I think it was his photograph that made me realize that I now owned a dog. There was no way in hell that someone was going to claim the chunky canine in that photograph—chunky with fat, chunky hair with bald patches and clumps, the chunks of whatever around his eyes. I had some hope that I could doctor up the photo, make him appear more attractive but no. This missing flyer was going to be nothing more than a quick laugh for teenagers walking home from school or the motivation for some child to stop pestering their parents for at least a month about, “But Mom, I want a dog. I’ll take care of it. I’m old enough to be responsible. I’ll walk it. Can I have a puppy?”

Yes, he was that ugly and I was that much of a sappy moralist—I couldn’t toss him back through the threshold of my front door. Even though he shed. And he didn’t shed like a normal dog in thin layers of fuzz on couches and black pants. No. This shedding was slightly damp, even days after the molting occurred. Even though he answered to no name and obeyed no commands. The poor guy merely sat there with moist eyes, shining around the corners with tentative love and constant vigilance against violence. No sudden movements and no loud noises.

Maybe I need the company. Because there was another missing poster this year. This one for my boyfriend. Now that picture was powerful at first sight as well. And smooth where the other was chunky—glossy hair, slender, taught skin over cheekbones. His smell too came through for me. The humid tang of his breath and saliva that became my favorite sustenance, which I could smell from across the room along with the soap from his skin. I wanted to bond to his mouth, to live in the stream of air that went in and out. I’d camp out between his teeth with the plaque if I could.

There are creatures that are so lonely, so desolate and inured to the rejection of others that they bond with any living thing. This dog and I, then, are kin. Unphotogenic kin. So there can still be panting in the night of some sort. That long night where I stare in the dark at the mirror on the closet door, which reflects the sparse stars of my world—the green dot on the set alarm clock, the red of the DVD player, the flash of the smoke detector. My canopy of stars. If I am awake long enough, they form personal constellations or perhaps portentous messages from the gods.

Messages like:

MISSING

One human heart

Answers to the name of Miss Patty

Reward…