Original Short: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Summary: A determined thirteen-year-old is about to rear his first son. It was a golden puppy by the name of Leon. Little did he know how short his career as a father would be.
Notes: The title of this story is taken from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 9: 4.
Word Count: 1,242
It was in the summer of 2009 when James Johansson became a father. He did not sire a human child. He was too young for that. You see, it was a different specie altogether- a foster child for a foster father. It was in late May when he decided to adopt the stray puppy in their backyard. He found the poor limping creature behind one of his father’s oversized garbage cans. When his mother asked him how a puppy managed to enter her private garden, the 13-year-old boy simply shrugged and walked inside the house with the dirt-covered mutt snuggled safely in his thin arms as he padded silently towards the bathroom.
He didn’t find the need to question the puppy’s existence. It was just…there. Somehow, he had the feeling the pup was meant to be adopted by him. One day, it was sitting in their well-manicured lawn, the next it was hiding inside their garden with its golden brown eyes settled on the young boy’s cerulean ones. James was sure the puppy did not belong to anyone so his mother’s constant fretting of getting sued for “dognapping”-if there was even such a word- was unfounded. People in their suburb placed distinct collars on their pet dogs. When James found the puppy, it had no collar around its neck.
Collar. Let us delve into collars for a bit.
It was one of the ways people showed off, his father told him once over breakfast. Clearly, it was not meant for restraint because the animals in their neighborhood were usually unleashed. Since no one got bitten, no one complained. The dogs prowled in front of their master’s mansions every single day. When passersby came along, the four-legged sentinels would look them in the eye and raise their furry heads as though commanding respect from those strangers while intimidating them at the same time. James noticed that some collars were studded with opal and jade, few with garnets, and the rarest ones with diamonds. The type of stone set in was usually determined based on the size of the house and the type of cars parked in the owner’s garage, or whether said owner was some renowned CEO of a big multinational corporation or simply an owner of a thousand-something hectare of land in the less affluent side of town. James never saw the distinction anyway so he left the stone-type business at that.
James didn’t want any kind of pretension. His mother was ostentatious in her own way and it was more than enough showing off the family needed so why burden a little puppy with such a horrendous unnecessary task? Thus, he didn’t put any collar on his newly adopted puppy. He would put a collar on him when the appropriate time came. For now, James was sure though that he didn’t see his puppy as a pet. When one has a pet, he becomes a master of sorts. He believed the title “master” was unbefitting of him and it was more appropriate for those snobbish, wealth-obsessed workaholics his dad always invited over the house. There was a suppressive ring to the word itself and James was uncomfortable with that.
He decided to christen his “son” with the name Leon. It sounded majestic and James knew that when Leon grew up, he would live up to his name. Like a lion, he would be a great big animal, leader of the pack who commands respect from everyone. He would be the best dog in town. He would walk along the streets, beautiful with his coat of golden hair, with James the proud father by his side. Other dogs would cower away in fear yet with respect as soon as they see Leon’s silhouette emerging from that great corner house. Leon would have a collar then and no stone would be worthy enough to adorn his mighty collar.
---
“We will rule the world with bone and might, you and I, an unstoppable sight.”
---
Three days later, Leon was nowhere to be found.
James looked everywhere inside and outside their manor and he even asked for the assistance of his parents, something he rarely did. Half-heartedly, his parents drove him around town, looking for a golden-haired dog. On the fifth hour of searching, it started to rain heavily. James ordered the car to a halt. His father’s eyes bulged at the sudden rise of tone in his son’s cracking voice.
James spotted Leon, or rather, what was left of Leon.
How he managed to recognize the bloodied corpse to be his son’s was beyond his parents’ comprehension. Unmindful of the rain, the boy got out of the car with sluggishness unnatural of his age before sprinting madly towards Leon’s dead body. Rain beat down on his back and his fair hair begun to stick awkwardly on the side of his head. He didn’t feel the coldness of the rain pierce his bones. What he felt was a different kind of cold. It was a cold that numbed his soul, a cold that made inexplicable sadness well up inside him, a cold that blocked out everything and everyone else.
At that moment for James, it was only Leon that mattered. His parents could shout all they want until their voices went hoarse and their throats bled. He didn’t care. How could he care? His son was dead. He was grieving and the kindest thing his parents could possibly do for him while he mourned for his loss was shut up and leave him under the rain. At least, James thought, maybe the rain could dull that aching pain that started to build inside him, constricting his chest, constricting his breathing. It was getting ridiculous, he realized, crying under the rain like this, crying over his dead son. His dead son…
Mr. and Mrs. Johansson were about to get out of the car when they heard laughter echo around the block. At first, they didn’t know where it was coming from until they saw their son’s shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Then they saw him slowly stand up from where he was kneeling. The boy turned around and they spotted in his arms the golden puppy he found lurking in their backyard three days ago. There was something red on the puppy, was it blood? It could not be blood because the boy looked happy, thought Mrs. Johansson. If it were blood then he would be mourning. The puppy was probably sleeping, tired and hungry from trying to find its way back home and failing miserably to do so, it passed out in front of some doctor’s house. The family doctor, in fact, thought Mr. Johansson, when he saw that distinct Rx mailbox, something only their eccentric doctor would be able to come up with.
James was thoroughly soaked when he climbed into the car, a peculiar grin still plastered on his handsome face. His father drove home while his mother started to question him when he shook his head and ran his pale fingers through the matted hair of the dead puppy’s head.
“Shh! Do not talk mother, my son is sleeping. You might rouse him from his slumber.”
---
“So sleep my dearest son, no one can harm you; sleep my dearest son, Daddy will protect you.”
---