by Reginald
The day went on as normal as it could for someone who had just experienced what Jarrold had. He had moved Sarabi around to the open backyard and the note she had been guarding flew away on the wind before he could inspect it closely.
Jarrold thought about taking the dog to the local animal shelter, but he didn’t want to try and explain to the lovely ladies there where the dog had come from. He didn’t have the words to explain the strange muscle structure that the dog possessed. When he put a leash on her to take her to the backyard, she was strong enough to have taken control of the walk, but she was easy to move and followed directions when he asked her to heel, as if the two had completed training together. She seemed to know him and her demeanor proved she honored Jarrold with respect.
“You really are something,” Jarrold said to her. “Where you come from?”
Sarabi stared at him with a knowing look. A calculated and behavior-altering look. She focused on him as if she was trying to look into his mind. She seemed to want to understand what he was saying. Her eyes told him that she wanted to respond to his question.
Jarrold made the vision in his mind’s eye into a screen, like a blank page for word processing, and words began to populate the blank expanse. They disappeared almost as quickly as they had come and Jarrold forced his attention back to the dog.
“Where yo owner?” he asked as he gazed into Sarabi’s eyes. “He just left you here? What am I suppose to do witcha?”
The blank, white expanse in his mind’s eye became apparent to him and the words, “Keep me” populated the empty space. And again, it disappeared
.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Jarrold asked again when he looked at the dog..
Sarabi cocked her head. “Utilize me” appeared on the white space in his mind.
“When you learn how to google, then maybe I can use your help,” Jarrold responded to the words that he was sure Sarabi had put in his mind.
After he said it, the word “What?” appeared him his mind. They were having a conversation, but it begged the question, was it really the dog sending written messages into Jarrold’s mind?
“Google,” Jarrold explained. “Like, look stuff up.”
“Stuff?” appeared in the white space.
“Information,” he said out loud in response. “Things that I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” appeared in the white space.
“Like, where did you come from? How could you be here? What breed you are. All of these things and more. That’s what I don’t know”
Jarrold sighed heavily.
“Now I’m sitting here talking to a dog. Well to myself.”
The shadow of the tree that he leaned against had made its transition across the earth and then began to shrink; it threatened to disappear completely.
“It’s getting late, and I’m hungry,” Sarabi communicated with words that appeared in Jarrold’s mind.
”What do you eat?” he asked. “Its some deer out in those woods”
Sarabi stood. This was the first stance of assertiveness that he had seen from her. She nudged the leash with her muzzle then looked at Jarrold.
Hee saw her words in his mind, “Take it off.”
With caution, he reached over and undid the metallic clasp. Sarabi turned and took off with a stride that made the hundred yards to the tree line look like inches.
Moments passed and the sun had completed its descent. Jarrold had gone into the house to fix himself a sandwich, and now he stood on the back porch looking out on the darkness. The shape of the blackness began to move, or seemed to. The movement caught Jarrold’s attention. A foul and acrid aroma wafted to Jarrold and he struggled to hold down the sandwich he had finished as Sarabi sashayed in his direction with pride. The corpse of a buck hung limp in her jaws. There was a trai 8f cloud that no doubt led to the place where the rest of its fecal matter, bowel, and throat lie.
Sarabi sat, then eased her way down to lay flat on her stomach. She placed her paw over the haunces of what remained of the animal. Looking Jarrold in his eyes, she ripped the hind quarter from its hip socket. Sarabi positioned the severed piece before Jarrold. Then continued to tear chunks from the lifeless buck, and purred as she chewed and swallowed the freshly butchered kill.
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