Rough Times

"Bill... Bill."

"What?"

"You seeing what I'm seeing yeah?"

"Yeah mate. Dom?"

"Yeah."

"What the fuck's in this skunk?"

Bill flicks the joint in front of him, letting its head sputter to a dim glow in the middle of the road. Its last smoky sighs drawing a near perfect picture of the coal coloured night; tracing all the wrinkles and creases of the air, capturing all the swirls and slivers.

The two lads narrow their eyes and tighten their lips, lurching forward through the fumes as they attempt to capture a gander at the mystery which made them question their perfectly good weed.

They stare at a small silhouette camouflaged in the darkness, about 20inches in height, frozen in a mid-walking position and caught in the gaze of the boys like a deer paralyzed by headlights. It balanced on one spindly toothpick of a leg; perched tall on its tiptoes with pressure trembling through its pointed ankle, so delicate that it bends with the wind.

Its bushy tail gently swept the pavement between those wobbling feet.

"Pass me a phone would ya" Bill whispered against the roar of distant cars. Dom digs in his pocket and chucks one over.

"What's the code?"

"Didn't get it", Dom shrugs in reply, boring his eyes into the peculiar shadow.

"Fucking idiot," Bill snarls behind his teeth, threads of steam from the cold rising out between the cracks of them.

Biting his top lip and staring down, bewildered at the keypad of numbers he thinks, fuck this, and lobs the phone over in the outline's direction. It flips through the air, pointing a dim spotlight up at the night being held afloat by a few lonely stars, before spinning over the shallow craters sunken into the worn out and hollow tarmac below. The silhouette ducks as the phone shoots towards it, skimming over and crashing into the window of a half boarded up bookshop behind instead. It bounces off, leaving a spider web shatter and a sharp gasp from the glass to the air, before dully bouncing beside the trimmed claws of the matchstick feet, shining up and blooming around it.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!!" Shouts Bill and echoes Dom.

The boys leap back, the bottom of their jaws dropping as low as their tracksuits. Dom rubs his eyes. He rubs them again, and again, until the skin around them blushed. Bill remained slack-jawed, his head poking forward and back arching backwards, his body long like the neck of a turtle inching out of its shell. His brow was brooding like a bridge collapsed in the middle as he tried to believe what he finally saw: Two flopping ears, two beady black eyes twitching between the two of them, one glistening black snout, and a fuck load of short, scraggy fur; all standing on hind legs in a chequered tweed blazer. One classy English Cocker Spaniel.

"B-b-b-bbb-bb...b...bbbb –"

"Shut up", Bill interrupts.

"Bill fuck this, fuck this Bill" Dom stammers, treading up a circle of dust and throwing his hands to the dog, to the sky, and clasping his head all in a matter of seconds. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna bounce yeah, you know this shit is too much man, fucking creepy arse dogs in the dark like – I'm just freaking man, what if it's packing under that coat man? Fuck man, FU–

"Dom!" Bill straightens out and lights up a cigarette, "it's a fucking dog man; you walk 'em, run 'em, fight 'em. A mutt. Some pansy's just dressed the posh dog twat up and making him do walk abouts, you know, probably for one of them uh, doggy craft parade things".