Short Story: Them’s The Breaks.

Them’s The Breaks.

“God-dammit Reena! I can’t take this anymore!” Bhairav roared as he paced around the room.

The room itself looked as though a tornado had hit it, everything was in disarray and the air was thick with tension as Reena watched him walk in infinity loops around the debris, fuming and red-faced.

“Please..” she tried, “You need to calm down, you know you musn’t get this worked up. The doctor said that the anuerysm…”

“I know what the damned, bloody doctor said! But this is unaaceptable! Look at this, the room is in an utter shambles – the cutlery is embedded in the walls, your fancy artisanal maple syrup is sprayed on our most expensive sofa, that cabinet is hanging off the wall by the wiring and somehow those plants were de-potted and made their way under the dining table and were replaced by the remains of our breakfast and my moms ceramic Bluejay!!”

Rather than respond when she had nothing to say, Reena elected to let him get it out of his system.

“Oh! But we got lucky! Because the new drapes managed to make their way to the floor and cover the carpets, protecting them from my imported set of inks that somehow made their way from the next room after they decided to jump out and spray across my whole studio.

“And don’t even get me started on what happened yesterday to our mailbox – how do you even do that to something attached to the wall two feet above you?!?” he said with frustration that was squeezing his face inward like as though he had sucked one too many lemons and was holding his breath and puffing out his cheeks simultaneaously. The result was a pinched, puffy face that instead of expressing anger, had the effect of making Reena work over-hard to stifle a laugh itching to burst out.

Nearby the culprit sat silently, patiently, rainbow-coloured from the fancy ink, just waiting to see what would happen next and utterly entranced by the clomping, pacing, gibberish speaking man before him.

“You!” bellowed Bhairav at the floppy-eared hound, “I don’t know what I was thinking but YOU have pushed me too far!”

He strode across the room and squatted right in front of the dog before continued his pinch-faced tirade and finally going after the guilty party – who in turn simply cocked his head to one side and waited patiently.

“You know Bob, I’m a little tired of your crap man! You know what I’m going to do to you for this? Do you have any idea?!”

As Bhairav waited for an answer to the rhetorical question he had asked, the wily Bob simply poked his head forward a little and licked him smack on the nose and cheek and then just sat back making the biggest Bambi-eyes that Bhairav had ever seen.

Defeated, utterly check-mated, Bhairav dropped his head and sighed, one hand still holding up his accusing finger in vain. Bob got up and started snuffling around his scalp as if to push his head up and finally he was granted success as his formerly raging master just looked up with the most resigned look a man can have – the kind only brought forth by children and pets – and spoke to the victor, “Fine. You win you fur-ball. But since we don’t want any repeats of this, you, are going to obediance school this summer.”

Suddenly Bob had popped backward and taken off running out of the room and was gone without any trace.

Looking back at his now freel-smirking wife, Bhairav said, “You know, I really believe that little smart-ass understands way more than he lets on.”

END.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “A Dog Named Bob.”

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