The Dog is Doing Nothing

The day was relatively overcast and the night creeped on the clouds and the sun as the sky turned an orange- purple. Every minute the sun creeped lower and lower under the cover of the West Mesa. The sand of the arroyo was still hot from the sun of the day and the shrubs and cacti were begging for the night, but the dog did not know. The dog cared not for these things as he could not. The pull of the leash, the heat of the sand, the color of the sky, they were all indifferent to the dog. Ignorance was the core of the dog's life. There were no questions, only observations in the world of the dog.

Once the caretaker and the dog arrived home the owner unleashed the dog, washed her hands, and walked to her bedroom with an almost urgent but relaxed walk. The house was styled in that of pueblo revival, with blue window sills and a blue door. The summer heat seeped into the house and forced the air conditioning to work harder to regulate a comfortable air. The brown tile floor, however, was cool as it absorbed all the air conditioner's almost endless product. The dog's paws felt cool on the tile floor so the dog laid on his belly and fell asleep.

The dog had a dream in his sleep. He dreamed of a specific moment in the past with his owner in a car. He could feel the warmth of his owner's lap and he could hear the wind blowing around the car and the faint melodies of a distorted guitar from the radio. He could see the forest rapidly passing by the highway, counting each individual tree and instinctively looking for a rabbit or a mouse to hunt. He was calm. Then, suddenly, a man broke the quietness of the car. He said words that the dog did not understand. He only understood the man was loud.

After the man finished speaking in his loud voice the dog noticed that the owner's lap felt different. It suddenly felt warmer and warmer and getting more tense by the second. He even noticed the small tensions of the muscles, the blood rushing through the veins of her thighs and the owner's hands clenching the nylon cloth of the seat. At that moment the dog felt a deep and foreboding feeling. It felt like the feeling hadn't been felt in years, decades, millenia even. The dog felt pure and primal fear. So deep and so strong. But then as the owner's tension peaked, the dog woke up

As the dog woke up the sun had already set welcoming the dark of the night into the house. It was quiet except for the faint sound of typing and appliances humming. The fridge was the loudest to the dog. While the dog was walking to drink water he noticed the typing stopped. As he stopped at the water pale the dog began to drink. As he drank he heard an almost foreboding yet excited and high pitched word uttered from the caretaker. One of the only words the dog responded to; "Treat!!"

As the dog stopped everything to respond to his favorite word, he ran to the caretakers room, water still dripping from his mouth. He felt the soft rug under his feet and the seemingly immense light of the computer monitor cast upon the dark room of the caretaker. The caretaker slowly rotated her chair and body to face the dog. The computer monitor casted rays of almost holy blue light through the caretaker's blonde hair onto the room before the dog. As the caretaker and the dog met the dog sat as his trained, almost automated response to arriving at the speaker of the word "treat." The room fell silent upon the dogs sitting and the whir of the computer's processor fan seemed louder than possible. He then noticed the jar presented by the caretaker. An almost familiar shape and color to the dog.

Then as the whir of the computer became almost ear piercing, an ominous grin creeped upon the face of the caretaker. She opened the jar and grabbed a nearby spoon, scooped up a dollop of peanut butter, and presented it in front of the dog, and the dog was subject to one of countless experiments by the caretaker. However the dog had not idea of his condition as he lived in ignorance. He never understood the meaning of wrong or right, only what, but never why. The only thing he knew at that moment was that the food he was given tasted different than the food that usually looked like what he was eating.

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