I was feeling like I had fallen into writing nothing but “tumblr sized” chunks of creativity and wanted to write something slightly longer, even if no one on tumblr would linger long enough to read. It was fun to write with this voice, and dabble in the surreal and farcical.
I like it. Your mileage may vary.
Stretched out lazily across the futon, the dog locked his eyes on me as I counted and cut the pills.
“What are you doing, old man?”
I continued to separate the pieces into tiny piles, sliding a week’s worth of medication into the pill minder but keeping the morning’s dosage in my right hand. “You know what I’m doing, Ducky.”
“You can’t be getting ready to give me pills. You haven’t been shopping in weeks, old man. There’s no bread in the house; no peanut butter.”
“Those are ‘nice to haves’ not ‘need to haves,’ Ducky. You can take pills without them. And in dog years you’re the senior citizen, mutt.”
“Keep telling yourself that, old man.”
I walked in his direction. The dog got off the futon and sat on the floor. His gaze dropped to my right hand and then returned to my eyes. I reached towards his head. “Open up, Ducky,” I said firmly as my left hand pried his mouth open a little more easily than I expected.
Three pills popped into his mouth and my hands clamped down around his muzzle.
“Swallow. Swallow.”
He twisted slightly and in a few seconds I felt a gulp and released my grip. Ducky looked me in the eyes, yawned a little, made a little cough and spit three pills on my shoe.
“I’d suggest you go buy some bread, Gramps.”
I reached down and scooped up the damp medication. “I suggest you learn your place,” I calmly responded as I swung my arm around his neck and bulldogged him to the ground. “Take your pills!”
“You like them, you take them!” Ducky pushed back hard and slipped from the headlock. Before I could turn, I felt two paws pound me between the shoulder blades, sending me forward and sending my head slamming into the coffee table, splitting it in two. My head almost did the same.
“You mongrel bastard,” I muttered as I turned over in a pile of splintered wood.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Father.”
“No, but I’m glad it is,” and I sprung forward, pushing the dog onto his back with a powerful shove to the chest. I pinned him to the ground and put all my weight down on his stocky frame. Ducky whipped his mouth back and forth as my right hand, still filled with medication, darted fruitlessly towards his muzzle. “Fine,” I said. “Maybe this will make you open your mouth!” I cranked my right knee up as high as it would go and drove it down hard between his rear legs.
And nothing happened.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you cut them off, Dipshit!”
I realized my miscalculation but not before Ducky twisted and kicked me full force in the testicles with both rear paws. I stumbled up and staggered across the room trying to catch a breath that would never come. I was too dazed to notice that Ducky had begun to stand up on his rear legs and reach for a wooden chair beside him. With my hands on my knees I glanced up just in time to see him bring the chair crashing down across my back. I slumped down to one knee as Ducky grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and tossed me across the bar and through the plate glass window.
My body rolled across the parking lot and came to a rest after three rotations. I could hear Ducky step through the jagged opening and crunch through the broken glass. I made it to my knees as the dog stepped in front of me and crouched down. With one paw he lifted my chin to fix me with a stare. “Looking for these?” he chuckled as he held out the three pills in his other paw and threw them over his shoulder.
“No,” I murmured as I slipped a hand into my back pocket and pulled out the extra dose I had placed there while in the kitchen. “These will do.”
My whole hand exploded towards Ducky’s panting maw. Not just pills, but half of my hand went into his mouth and flicked the medication down his throat.
“Arrgh!” the dog screamed as he begun to try to spit. He whipped his head back and forth for a minute until the reality of the situation sank in. The pills were in him. And neither bread nor peanut butter accompanied them. “Son of a bitch,” he sputtered as he slumped to his side.
I got up and recovered the pills he had tossed away, “These are expensive, Ducky.”
“I know.”
“Need some water?
“That sounds good,” he said as he got up an followed me through the broken window opening back into the apartment. “Then walkies?”
“Good idea. We could use the exercise. Love you, Ducky.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
Ag
