I AM TIRED OF BOMBS AND MY DOG IS DEAD • by Michael D. Turner

The lights are back on. I don’t guess it makes much difference outside right now but at least I can get back to writing. The market is a mess, soldiers everywhere, as if soldiers can do anything after the fact.

Father called to make sure we were all right. No reason we shouldn’t be but I guess he had to call, given that this one was nearby. Though that is unfair of me as I know he cares for us. If he didn’t care he would let me do what I want.

I’m still mad at him about yesterday. Bad enough we had to go over the whole writing is a waste of time argument, but he also wouldn’t fire Cook, and after the man killed my dog. Well, sort of killed my dog.

He was supposed to feed her. Tikka, that was my dog, was just a little thing. Her bowl in the kitchen is where scraps from meals were supposed to go, to feed her. When I checked after dinner night before last Tikka’s bowl was empty and clean, not so much as a spot of grease, and Tikka was whining. Her ribs stuck out.

I found some rice and fed it to her. Then I went to Cook and asked why her bowl was empty. He gave me the whole “people are starving” argument, said it was wasteful to feed the dog with table scraps, that food was expensive. I pointed out that my Father bought the food, and had instructed him to feed the dog.

He got defensive, and while we were shouting Tikka got out the door. I don’t know how, if I knew she was going I’d have grabbed her. Even Cook, malodorous cretin though he is, wouldn’t have let her wander out of the house. Not until he’d permission to feed her to his own family anyways.

I sent him out to chase her down, being restricted to the house by my father’s own rule–because of the riots last week. Cook went out after her, sulking.

It isn’t my fault they were in the market when the bomb exploded. I don’t care if he loses his hand or not, he should have fed Tikka. Then none of this would have happened.

Father doesn’t see it that way.


Michael D. Turner lives in Colorado Springs. He’s been married a quarter-century and is still under fifty.

Rate this story:
 average 0 stars • 0 reader(s) rated this

Every Day Fiction