The Dog
I
remember once, talking about it. What would
we do if the world were to end? It took such a
melancholy turn, no one liked the idea. But then I
said we’d at least still have the dog.
Everyone smiled. How happy he would be,
everyone forced to be with him all the time in our
bunker. Every which way he might turn would
Those people that could leave a room for but a
second and on their return create the giddiest of
responses from his little eyes.
We’d have to keep a store of tennis balls amongst
the tins of beans; it’s pretty much just basic
animal rights that a dog gets a fresh tennis ball
once a month. And he’d keep us sane. Until we
could go outside again.
None of us argued when the dog was about.
It was a silly idea to have bought up anyway.
Until it wasn’t.
Until the bombs dropped, until we got in our
bunker and looked around. Saw how little food
we’d saved, saw that someone had probably
smiled as they’d placed a tennis ball on a shelf for
Shortlisted Story
to save up and laugh at later, when the bombs
never came.
Luke Southan
[email protected]
It broke our hearts, that one yellow toy. It was
why we went crazy in the end – it was a constant
reminder of what we’d done. How we’d looked at
the shelves, already so barren, and looked him
straight in his expectant eyes. One last time. And
left him to the whistling of falling death that he
could hear better than any of us.
Luke Southan is by trade a research scientist who
develops new blood tests for such exotic diseases as
multiple myeloma and autoimmune pancreatitis. To get
in the world to not like tea.
It was why we went crazy.
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