Читать книгу Keep Your Doors Open - Ryan Vuckovich - Страница 5

Her excitement was higher than the saucer she now bathed in. His excitement was lower than the dirty slums of the streets he walked through. But, they were both more nervous than the filthy Pauper exploring the realms of the wealthy Prince’s green, diamond eyed castle. The day had come, Saturday to be exact, and it was going to be the first time that both Paris and Roxy would meet each other outside of CFI.

Roxy did not know what to do with her new apartment. Part of her wanted to clean the place entirely showing Frank that she was not a slob, and the other half wanted to leave everything the way it was all boxed up so he would stay longer. In the end, she decided to do a mixture of both where it was not too messy but still needed some work. She also thought that it would give them enough time for her to suggest grabbing dinner together; her treat of course for coming over to help with the move.

Frank was torn as well; but, not by the clutter of his house, but how to dress for the day. Does he put on a nice shirt and tie like he does every day when going to work? Does he wear a t-shirt since he is mainly moving boxes and could get dirty?

“Could you help me out Martian?” Paris said to the hairy creature below him on the ground.

The dog got to its feet and looked up at his friend.

“What do you think I should wear when I go see Roxy tonight?” he said showing Martian two shirts. Martian gave a snore signaling Paris to put the shirts back. Paris then pulled out two new shirts, one work dress and the other a t-shirt.

Again the dog snored.

Pairs became a little annoyed by this but decided to try something different. He pulled out two polo shirts he had not worn in a long time and showed them to Martian.

The dog barked and waged his tail, and Paris knew what his friend was telling him: go with something in the middle.

In the end, Paris put on a black and blue stripped polo shirt and dark blue jeans.

“Thanks buddy,” Paris said as he came down the ladder.

Looking at his watch, Paris saw that there was still some time before he needed to start walking toward Roxy’s place. So, with the time he had to spare, Paris decided to play a game with Martian. Their games were never the simple dog games like “fetch the ball” and “sit, stay, come, play dead;” Paris thought those sort of games would be degrading to his friend. So, they would play games that would make them feel like equals. As opposed to games that could be viewed as “teaching a dog a new trick.” One of their favorite games was the shell game. Paris would take three opaque cups, place them on the table, and put a super ball underneath one of them. Then, he would rearrange the cups several times to try and fool Martian as to the super ball’s location. Martian was surprisingly good at this game, and there were only a few times where Paris was able to fool him.

“Either I’m getting better at this, or you‘re losing your touch old friend,” said Paris smiling after winning a game.

Playing games was just one of the many things these two friends would do together. They would stay up all night having conversations, one sided of course with the usual bark to acknowledge that Martian was listening. They would sit down on the porch and eat watermelon on a hot day. They would even play music together with Martian improvising a melody with howls and whines while Paris kept a steady beat playing the spoons. Every writer who searched for the perfect “boy and his dog” story could look at Paris and Martian’s companionship and see inspiration. And yet, Paris would disagree, about the “dog” part. Martian was like no other dog that he had encountered in the past; in fact, Martian was perhaps the only dog in history to truly comprehend what was on television. For, there were times when Martian would place his paw on the wireless TV on the wall and whine for Paris to turn on the device. Once the request was obliged, Martian would decide if the show was worth watching. If he did not like what he was seeing, he would give a very loud snore, and Paris would change the channel. There would be a back and forth of snoring and channel changing until Martian saw what he wanted to watch, barked, and waged his tail. Martian would sit and watch the show until it was over and snore again for Paris to find another show. What kind of a dog does that? Certainly none that Paris knew or heard of, which further solidified Frank’s belief that there was a “Martian” taking the form of a dog named Martian. Why the alien was here, he did not care; Paris was just happy to have a true friend help him through a world filled with annoying, animal worshiping humans.

However, Paris did hope that his feelings would change the more he socialized with people. Roxy would be the best place to start. Hopefully, this would not only be the first step toward gaining another loyal friend like Martian, but also in helping him with his hallucinations. The fact that Paris had one during an important meeting just proves that they were starting to get worse. Even though Martian was helping him cope with the terrible reality he was living, it still was not enough. Paris needed something more; he desired hope. Hope that the world would either get better and make it through the “transition period,” or come to its senses and realize that the animal’s kingdom should be abolished. Paris had almost completely given up hope until a few years ago on a Thursday, a day that he saw Death; it was also the day that Paris had met Martian.

It was a time when Paris was at his lowest. Lower than any human on the political chain or farm house web. Paris was 33 at the time and walking home from CFI after a terrible day at the office. He had messed up on his first tree tag proposal order. Even though they caught the problem in time, they told him that another mistake would lead to termination. Paris came home to find a Great Dane outside his place of which he had never seen in person before. From afar, he thought it was some sort of alien life form. Surprisingly, Paris ran up to the figure hoping it was a being from outer space who could take him away from this dystopia. He soon found that his dreams of sailing away from Orwell’s farm were crushed when the alien was in reality a very large dog. The Dane did not run in terror after seeing the man approach. He was more concerned about a gofer that could easily feed his hunger for the day. Digging for the prey, the large canine had his large, saliva drenched tongue flopping around hopping that he would soon taste the flesh of the ground rodent. Watching the black dog digging for the gofer outside made Paris hallucinate for a few seconds, but, within those seconds, he saw a dark figure wearing a black coat digging his grave. His pointed ears were the horns of the Devil, and his salivating mouth was bile dripping from Satan’s jaws. The tongue was the serpent that tempted Eve with the apple, and the teeth were tombstones lined up showing all who had fallen before the lord of evil. Others would just see a dog digging in the yard, but Paris saw his death. No longer could he live in a world where he was beneath the hooves of a cow, the wings of a chicken, and the claws of a lizard. It was time for him to die, and it was going to be a carrion feast for man’s former best friend, a dog.

Paris began his walk on the grey mile to face his death. He dropped his briefcase on the ground, took his glasses off, and placed them gently into his side pocket. As he drew closer, the dog stopped what he was doing and looked up at Paris staring at him with blank eyes. Paris fell to his knees before the grim as a sign of defeat.

“Take me away,” Paris said to the beast, “I don’t want to live in this Hell anymore.”

The dog looked at him, taking in all that was said, and then went back to looking for the gofer.

Most people would take several steps of emotions when death has been denied to them. The first step is shock which comes after one has been denied to die, the second is rage which is used to instigate death, and the third is contentment which comes after knowing that one will die soon. Paris skipped the first step and became enraged with fury.

He started yelling at the dog, “Kill me, kill me you stupid dog!”

But the hunter kept digging for prey which made Paris furious. The hunger to escape this cannibalistic paradox was eating his sanity. He needed to die and Paris was going to do anything to make this wish a reality. Then, Paris got an idea. He went back to pick up his briefcase and told himself that he would show that stupid animal.

“Either that animal is going to kill me after I hit him with this, or the police are gonna have to kill me for beating that piece of shit to death,” he muttered to himself.

Paris reached down and grabbed the briefcase which slapped his knee but caused him no pain. He was too emotionally distraught to feel any physical pain. As he turned around to face the animal, the dog began to approach Paris.

“That’s right,” said Paris, “Come get your bashing. Good boy.”

Paris lifted the suitcase over his head very slowly as to not give the animal any awareness of what was to come. The dog stopped walking once he was close enough to the human, and, right before Paris was about to smash the briefcase onto the dog’s skull, a large object fell from the animal’s mouth.

Out of curiosity, Paris stopped his weapon from coming down on the dog and took out his glasses, so he could see what the object was that dropped out of the animal’s mouth. Once his glasses were on, Paris looked at the object that was placed before him. It was a gofer; the very same gofer that the dog had been looking for this whole time. Paris slowly placed the briefcase on the ground and went back to the first step of the emotional process of death which was shock. This animal brought him, a human, another animal. Thoughts began to dance in Paris’s head. Had this beast turned rogue? Isn’t it strange that a dog would bring a dead animal to another human? He knew that this was common in cats, but this was a dog. Or was it? Perhaps this was an alien; maybe an alien that took on the form of a dog but got the characteristics of a cat?

After some deliberation, Paris decided to see what else the dog, or cat, would do next. He began circling around the creature moving toward the entrance of his home. The beast picked up his prey and began to follow Paris.

“Stay right there!” Paris shouted seeing what the creature would do, and it did as it was told. “It understood me,” Paris thought to himself, “I wonder what else it understands? Drop that gofer,” He commanded and the beast obeyed. “Walk away from it,” and again, the beast obeyed.

Paris was impressed but still wanted to see what else the dog impersonator could do. He decided to give a more complex command.

“Come inside the house and bring that with you,” he said pointing to the gofer.

The four legged creature scoped up the kill in its jaws, and walked past Paris to go into the house without any hesitation. Paris became even more bewildered by the whole experience. He devised one more test before he would make up his mind about this “supposed animal.”

Paris told his house guest to “make yourself comfortable” which the creature did. Lying down in the living room, the black figure began to devour the life it had slain. While the creature ate dinner, Paris went into the kitchen to look for three opaque cups. He tried to look for some sort of round object to hide under one of the cups. After not being able to find anything in the kitchen, he remembered that he had a pink super ball tucked away in his room and went to look for it. After climbing up to his bunk, Paris went straight to his clothing drawer and, in the corner of his sock drawer, was the bright pink super ball, which was about half the size of a baseball. It was given to him when his father had taken him to the zoo one day, and Frank had kept it ever since. But there was no time to reminisce about the past, Paris had to perform one last test on the creature.

By the time Paris had gathered up the three cups and the super ball, the beast had already devoured the gofer.

“You must have been hungry,” said Paris. The beast sneezed, and Frank could not help but laugh.

“What are you, a human now? And I think you are supposed to burp, not sneeze,” he said laughing.

The beast then scratched its ear playing the role of a dog.

“Alright, let’s see how smart you really are,” Paris told his house guest to come into the kitchen and sit near the table. He showed the “dog” his pink super ball and placed it underneath one of the three cups. Quickly, he shuffled them around several times. After feeling that he had done a good job trying to fool his opponent, Paris asked the player to guess the location of the ball. Without hesitation, the black creature moved its nose knocking over the cup which had the ball underneath. Paris was stunned beyond disbelief.

“Let’s do this again,” he said to the player. Paris did the same routine and asked the black beast to find the ball, and again the opponent beat the house. This went on for a total of 20 rounds and the “dog” found the ball every time.

“And I thought apes were the only animals who were superior at this game,” thought Paris.

This creature was smart, beyond smart. But, it acts so weirdly. It drops prey in front of him like a cat, sneezes like a human, scratches its ear like a dog, and plays the shell game like an ape.

“You must be from Mars,” said Paris, “Because I have never heard of a dog that was able to do the things you can do.” And with that statement, Paris knew what to call this interesting being, Martian. And the two of them have played the shell game together ever since, even to this day when Paris was to meet up with Roxy.

After losing a game to Martian, Paris looked at his clock and realized he needed to start toward Roxy’s place. He started to head toward his door less entrance but paused. Martian followed behind him and nudged his hand.

“I’m… I’m nervous Martian. This is my first time spending time with…someone… outside of work. Aside from you of course, but Roxy will be the first…well… she isn’t you,” Paris laughed at this comment. He then went down to one knee to hug his friend, “I wish you were coming along with me pal.”

After his hug, Martian quickly ran into the living room. When he came back, he nudged Frank’s hand open. Paris put his hand close to Martian’s mouth, and his friend dropped the pink super ball into Paris’s hand. Paris looked at the object for a few moments and almost cried, and Martian gave him a big wet kiss.

Frank laughed, “Thank you, old friend.”

And with that, Paris placed the super ball into his pocket, got off of his knee, and started his journey to Roxy’s knowing full well that no matter what happens, his best friend will have three cups waiting in the living room for him when he comes back; one for himself, one for his best friend, and one for Roxy if she chose to visit.