For the Love of Dog

I tried very hard to escape it, but in the end it caught up with me so completely that it nearly smothered me to death. Imagine a full sized bed pillow, and then imagine someone really strong, like Hulk Hogan or Mark Latham or Mighty Mouse, and they squeezed this pillow between their hands as hard as they could. Condensed it into as small an amount of space as possible… all the gaps between the fibres inside the pillow would disappear and the pillow would be the size of a small fruit, only heavier and denser and tasting exactly like a squashed pillow. And then this pillow would be stuffed down your throat so that you choked on it. That’s how I felt.

I should start at the beginning.

It was a normal day like any other. I was driving to work in a moderately average mood as it was the middle of the week, listening to Hope FM. It was raining quite hard, and I am quite a nervous driver at the best of times so this didn’t bode well for me. As the wipers squeaked back and forth amidst the torrents of rain, opening the briefest recurring view of the road before me, I glimpsed a black shape as it came bolting out in front of me. Naturally I slammed on my brakes and tried to veer to one side, all at once, but the wet weather caused me to slide and I heard a muffled squeak as my car hit something. Eventually I came to a stop and I tumbled out of my car to see what I had hit.

It was a black poodle, and it was very dead. I panicked. What should I do? I couldn’t just drive on, the poor animal was partially pressed under my wheel. A few times I made to try and move it but snatched my hands back before touching it. The idea of touching it revolted me. I felt very cold and miserable and decided to just get back in my car and get out of there.

“What have you done to my dog?!?” A woman suddenly came at me, shrieking and shaking in the rain.
“It… ran out in front of me” I said meekly.
“Gypsy, Gypsy, Gypsy!” the woman sobbed, she fell to her knees on the road in front of the dead dog, not caring that her dress was being ruined.
All I could say was, “Sorry”.
She looked up at me, her eyes red and large, and her voice rose out of her like a deep, retching gasp, “You’re not sorry at all! Look what you did to her, my poor Gypsy. You killed her!”
I was gobsmacked, I began to protest. I shrugged my shoulders and denied it, said it was an accident, blamed it on the weather. I was halfway through my rambling explanation when I felt something heavy fly into the back of my head and everything went black.

When I awoke I could no longer feel the rain on me. I was cold and soaked to my skin, my clothes felt heavy and cloying. It was very dark but when I looked up I could see a glimpse of light, a little crack in the sky. I don’t know how much time passed but it didn’t take long to realize that I was somewhere without a door. I was in some kind of very small circular room made of stone. I sat there shivering for a while until the crack of light in the sky erupted into an opening and I saw the face of a very grim looking man peaking down at me.
“You done and killed our poor Gypsy you murdering bastard”, his voice echoed down to me, clear as cold winter glass.
“I… I didn’t”, my teeth chattered in my skull.
The woman’s face appeared next to the man’s, “You did, you did. I saw it. You murdered her”.
“It was an accident”.
The woman started crying again, “We loved her, you prick. She was our little gypsy”.
“You gonna pay for what you did to our dog mister” said the man.
“What are you going to do to me?” I tried to keep my voice brave. I wouldn’t let my fear overtake me.
The man just scowled and disappeared again. The woman kept looking down at me for a while longer, just shaking her head. Then all was black again as they replaced the lid on my little circular room.

Time passed strangely. I had only my thoughts to keep me company... I played counting games, thought of my favourite episodes of Blue Heelers, imagined what it would be like to fight a kangaroo. I did everything I could to keep my fear at bay but eventually, as I mentioned earlier, it won out. The fear rose up from around me and poured itself down my mouth, choking me and paralyzing me completely. I was going to die.

I think I must’ve fallen asleep. I awoke to the sound of activity above me and I looked up to see the circle of light that led out of the hole. There was no one there, just daylight. I thought I could see fluffy white clouds.

I heard a clanking sound as something shiny flew over the edge of the opening and came clattering down into the circular room. It landed just next to my foot, I reached out and held it up to see what it was. It was the side mirror from my car. I could tell because it had a funny scratch on it from one of my poor parking jobs. Why would they chuck down a mirror? I was looking at the dishevelled but still handsome face in it when I heard a distant, low sound. I looked up to see something large, black and heavy roll over the edge.

I made a senseless yelping sound and tried to press myself flat against the wall as much as I could. The tyre clobbered against the side of my head and just sort of flopped to the ground next to me. My ear rang and my head felt hot from where it hit me. The ringing had just started to die down when two more tyres came tumbling down from above.

I was almost knocked senseless. One of the tyres landed directly on my legs, the rim of the hubcap cutting into my skin. The other smacked me on my head. Thankfully it was only the rubber part, but it still hurt a lot because it was heavy and it jarred my neck. I started moaning and decided to yell for help. I didn’t deserve this. They should’ve kept their dog in it’s yard.

My yells were eventually answered by two more tyres. This couple must’ve loved their dog a lot to bother pulling out the spare. I squeezed my eyes shut as they fell down on top of me. After the pain and commotion I ungrit my teeth and surveyed the damage. I lay crushed underneath the tyres now, blood running freely from a cut in my arm. I think one of my legs was broken but it was hard to tell because I couldn’t really move. Five tyres and one person was all the small room seemed capable of holding. I hoped the crazed couple would just let me be for a bit.

The top of the room remained open. A fair bit of time seemed to go past with nothing else happening so I decided to get myself more comfortable. I managed to pull myself out from under the tyres and climbed on top of them. My leg wasn’t broken, it just seemed to ache a whole lot. I laid back on top of the haphazard pile and kept still, letting the various pains in my body slowly come to life.

The woman appeared again. I felt so afraid, I would’ve pissed myself if I hadn’t already emptied my bladder when the first tyre came down.

“Look at what you did to her!!!!!” Oh god, she held the ragged remains of her dog over the opening. The smell of it was putrid. I vomited all over myself as she shook it above me, shaking loose little bits of dog-insides that splattered down over me in disgusting little droplets.

I was in hell. This was fucking hell. I started crying. My eyes stung and I wailed like a mother in mourning, my own wretched sobs drowning out the senseless screaming of the woman above me. Mucus bubbled from my nose and ran down my upper lip into my open, moaning mouth. I started choking and coughing. The woman stopped screaming and eventually my crying died to a few pathetic whimpers and I mustered the courage to look up again.

“You just wait where you are” said the woman sternly. She turned away, taking her stinking dog carcass with her.

A shadow fell over the opening as something large and angular came smashing down. Something hard and metallic bit into my head and I soon felt blood flowing down from my scalp. They had thrown one of my car doors down on me. It lay across my body, the top of the frame against my head. The glass remained intact, but no sooner had I made note of this when something heavy and iron-cast dropped from the sky like a stone, smashing through the window and into my legs, crushing my knee into fragments beneath the skin. The glass crumpled and cracked from the impact, shattering outwards from where the piece of engine had landed. I screamed wordlessly. I think I went into shock. It was at this point that I decided to use my Boost Chocolate Bar.

The Boost Chocolate Bar is a tasty and slightly Mars-like chocolate bar that contains guarana to help boost energy levels. I often carry one in my pocket and this day was no exception. Thankfully the bar had sustained minimal damage besides a bit of superficial melting. I used my good hand to pull it free from my pocket and ripped open the packet with my teeth. I knew I didn’t have much more time, who knew what other parts of my car would soon come down on top of me. I wouldn’t survive much more of this… it was silly to save my Boost Chocolate Bar any longer.

I ate that chocolate fast. This was not the time for savouring… it was a time for BOOSTing.

I felt the energy coursing through my veins.

I felt my wounds healing. My destroyed knee repaired itself in record time, rejecting the heavy motor part that crushed it. The iron-cast object came tumbling free from my leg and rolled down and away from the car door window. I gingerly felt my scalp… it was sticky with dried blood, but huzzah! The wound itself was gone. I pushed the car door off me and up against the wall opposite. I clamboured to my feet and looked up.

The surly man stood there, glowering down at me. In his hands was another car door. He roared in anger and threw it down with all his might. I BOOST-punched the door back up to him with such a mighty force that the frame decapitated him as it caught him in the throat. His head shot free of his body and came rollicking down into the room. I caught it and BOOST-kicked it up and out over the edge of the opening. The woman came to the edge as I did this and the head hit her right in her own head and she fell back with a little yelp. I then crouched down onto my haunches and BOOST-jumped out of the room and to freedom. I BOOST-ran home and never looked back.

I love Boost Chocolate Bars.