#20 - Ignorance Seems Bliss

A stirring. They were alive. I was permitted to move.

“You ready to go out boy?”

The voice was flitty, chastising and grated upon my sensitive ears. I looked up at him with watery, sleep-filled eyes. There was no need for that tone.

“Here, let's go!”

I allowed myself to be led to the door and shackled. A small tug upon my neck signaled me to move amongst the outside world.

“I know!” the voice of the woman came.

It was later, and I was seated upon the couch. I watched the woman speaking into the white receiver of her telephone, a bright smile lighting up her face.

“I know! I know!” she shrieked over and over again, “I know, it's crazy!”

Clearly she knows, woman! Would you quit repeating the phrase like a drugged parrot? I placed my arms over my head. A force smacked at my haunch.

“Who's a good boy?” the man now said, “who's a good boy?”

I watched him while trying to fill my gaze with as much hate and desire for cold murder as I was able. My attempts to end his incessant patting did little.

“Who wants to go for a walk?”

I groaned with malice, apparently ringing like music to the man. He strode over to a desk, retrieving my shackle once again.

“Here you go boy!” he stated with the chipper of a snow elf.

I briefly fantasized about him suddenly changing into such a being, complete with a pointed, green hat. He would be much easier to bleed out then.

The walk. Oh, how I hate the walk. Others all around, down roads and walkways, each following their masters with careless abandon. How could they be so willing to surrender themselves to such degradation and humiliating treatment? I felt a large tug on my chain, sending the thing into my windpipe. I forced back a frustrated growl.

“This way, time to go home.”

We found our way back to the man's house, and my eternal prison. He unchained me and sent me forward. The woman was still on the phone. She gave me a fleeting look before returning her gaze to an empty spot upon the far wall, her lips curled into that stupid smile I had rapidly grown accustomed to seeing.

“It's just too much, isn't it?” she squealed with a high-pitched giggle.

I willed for a large meteor to strike the dwelling of her poorly intelligent phone-mate. Another moronic laugh had told me that my wish was far from granted.

“Time for bed!” the man's voice came as a drill to my eardrums, “Time for bed for you!”

I padded along the floor, taking note of the twinkling stars that peeked out from a long window in the next room. I truly envied those dots of light.

“There's a treat waiting for you in the bed, all right?” the man said to me while stooping over and meeting his gaze with my own.”

Oh boy! There's nothing I would appreciate more than a stale, flavorless chunk of processed meat paste waiting for me in the area where I am supposed to sleep! I was riveted.

Still, I relinquished myself to my fate, allowing the grinning man to shut the door behind me. I found the nugget within my blanket and cast it aside. I attempted to find a comfortable enough spot on the lumpy bed while the irritating drone of the woman's idiot-inducting conversation persisted through the closed door. I lied myself down, breathing out a long, heavy sigh. I allowed my gaze to float lazily about the room while waiting to grow tired. I fell asleep then, the final thought in my cynical head being that of knowing tomorrow was going to be exactly the same.