Various Vilifications

Dog Eat None

The day's first sun rays fell into the room, and the little black radio buzzed to life. It hung suspended in mid-air, a few inches above the kitchen counter. A single wire attached to its back held it there and prevented it from crashing down onto the wooden surface.

The radio picked up in the middle of some decades-old jazz tune, promptly ending the eerie silence that filled the room. A fully grown golden retriever dashed in through the door and came to a stop in front of the radio barking and howling, seemingly begging for it to stop. The dog kept up its charade for almost a minute before the music slowly faded out. It made way for a brief quiet, which then got replaced by a cheerful voice creeping out of the speaker. It made the dog jump and hide behind a nearby turned-over couch.

"Good morning! It's eight-thirty on the panhandle, nine-thirty in Miami. It's a perfect start in the day, with no reported traffic congestions and not a cloud in the sky. Temperature's seventy-three degrees in Lauderdale, sixty-eight in Tampa, seventy-five in Miami Beach, and seventy-one in Orlando. This is Tom Sutton, and you're listening to..."

And just like that the radio shut itself off again. The dog overcame its timidity in the ensuing silence, and slowly emerged from behind the table careful not to step in any of the glass shards laying around. The remains of the table they had once been a part of lay scattered across the room, its bend and twisted metal frame having been hauled into one of the corners.

The dog rose up on its hindlegs and placed two paws onto the counter. It normally wasn't allowed to do that. But with nobody around, well, who would be the judge of it? The strange voice certainly hadn't come back. It began to sniff around several disheveled stacks of papers, all of them wet from the spilled can of soda on the counter's far side. Knives of all shapes and sizes surrounded them, with a single smashed plate somewhere in the midst of it all.

Nothing about it made sense to the dog of course. The dried, crimson crust on some of the knives' edges could have been just about anything in its mind. And the ruined document that everybody else would have recognized as an an airplane ticket to Bogota was nothing more to the dog than an ordinary slip of paper.

There was nothing on the counter except for this irritating mess, which was strange. Most days, the place would be kept so neat and orderly. So why not now? The dog fell back onto all fours and continued wandering around the room, determined to investigate.

Something else came to mind, something the dog was looking for. Food. It could feel its stomach rumble. The dog couldn't recall how far in the past its last meal was at this point. But it didn't matter. The hunger was now. And it couldn't be ignored.

But where to find something to eat? Somebody had toppled almost all the cupboards and shelves in the room, making it impossible to access what was inside. The dog quickly hopped across some of them and towards the one small coffee table that still stood against the far wall like it always had.

An open book lay on top, along with the phone which the dog only identified as that strange appliance its owner sometimes used to talk to people who weren't even in here with him. He had a few strange habits, but they still loved each other regardless.

Even here, the dog couldn't find any food. It spent a moment examining the two items on the table that was only a little above the height of its eyes. The book didn't give the dog any clues of course. But when its snout pushed down on one of the phone's buttons, the latter sprang to life with another voice. This one was a woman's, much different from the one in the radio.

"Hey, uh...I got your message. What was that all about? You sounded off and...I don't wanna say wrong, but something's come up, hasn't it? What did you mean I'm gonna hear something about you that's so very bad? Can't you tell me yourself? I tried calling you on your cell phone, but that didn't work either. Just...just call me when you get back, okay? I don't want to sound the part, but you've got me worried. Seriously. Please call me back. And if there's anything seriously wrong, you know you can always talk to me, right...?

"Anyway, I'm hoping to hear from you. I'll be home all day anyway, so please call me. Until then, well, uh...right. Talk to you then."

The voice was cut off by a series of beeping sounds, followed by nothing. The dog shot the phone a curious glance. It considered barking at it for emphasis. The longer the phone remained silent however, the quicker the importance of doing so kept fading away.

It turned around and kept trotting around the room. The smashed glass pane of the sliding door leading to the balcony caused a steady breeze to blow through the apartment. It would have made some people shiver maybe, but the dog remained relatively unabashed by the wind. The outside was always very chilly this early in the day, after all.

Now, if only it could find a bite to eat. The dog decided to take a look in some of the other rooms. They weren't any less messy than this one, but something edible just had to be around here somewhere.