Yellow Submarine

A boy and his dog part two.

An eight year old boy sits at the table staring at his dog. His dog has not eaten in a week.

The boy was glad though. The dog was not supposed to live that long. They had brought home another puppy at the same time. It was a bouncy ball of white cotton fluff. His sister had named it snowball.

He had died four days ago. Something called Parvo. The boy wasn't sure what it was exactly, but the way the parents had talked about it, it seemed to be a puppy thing.

With Snowball's passing the whole family turned its attention to the other dog; the one with no name.

It had been a week of uncertainty for the boy.

Two nights ago he had heard his parents arguing, ostensibly about money. Those fights were always the loudest. His dad had just lost another job and was yelling because his mom wouldn't curtail her spending. His mom was calling his father an unfit father and a bad provider. He had heard it all before, but this time when his father went out to cool off he had come back with the smell of whiskey on his shirt and the fire certain kinds of water can add to a temperment.

That night he spent the night at his friends house down the street. He saw the lights of the cop cars and heard the distant din of conversation between the forms of his mother and the policemen after his father had been put in the back seat. The situation seemed to have calmed down because they were telling jokes, or at least he heard laughing.

The boy sighed.

Things had settled down a bit. His father now sat in front of the typewriter he had positioned on the table. He was typing up resumes between bites of his tuna fish on wheat.

The boy decided to go outside.

He looks up and down the street and the sky. Both are empty. The smell of evergreens and mud waft on the slight breeze tussling his hair. Erratic croaks from the bullfrogs remind him that the forest used to be a swamp, but for the most part the air is empty mostly because the birds haven't come back yet.

A deep voice erupts behind him.

Then comes the sound of rustling about and a high pitched squeal.

His sister comes running outside with the nameless puppy.

"Hey! Hey, not so rough with him! Wha? What's? going on?" morbid curiosity turns to stern warning turns to agitation.

"Hedidit!" his sister yelps.

"He did what? Slow down!"

"He did it! He ate something!"

"Oh. OH!" The boy laughs in amazement. "What was it? What happened?"

"It was great! Dad was sitting there typing and he knocked his sandwich on the floor. I asked him if he wanted me to get it but he said,"no, I'll get it when I finish." and when he bended down to pick it up the dog was licking the tuna!"

"Well what the hell did you bring him out here for?!?!?"

His sister tilts her head and stares blankly at him searching.

"LET HIM FINISH!!!" came the retort

"OH! I get it! Right."

His sister darts back into the house.

He lingers a while longer, face skyward and palms outstretched to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.