Tag: Fiction

Patterns

Published on by Raud Kennedy6 Comments

The dog sits in the back of the old dented Jeep, rust showing here and there under the dark green paint. The dog’s owner took off the top the first sunny day of summer and will forget about it until the rain comes in the fall. The dog is big and rangy with long fur in the black-and-tan saddle pattern of a German shepherd, and has upright ears that point in the direction of what he’s listening to.

He pants in the shade under the purple-leafed plum tree where his owner parked the Jeep in the Fred Meyer parking lot. It’s a big lot with plenty of action. People pull into it, park their cars and go into the store while others come out of the store pushing noisy shopping carts across the broken pavement and load up the backs of their SUVs. Continue reading “Patterns” →

Bushy Heads of Fur

Published on by Raud Kennedy5 Comments

Henry was a door-to-door salesman with a shock of bushy white hair. He’d grown up in the suburbs, knew suburbanites well and what they wanted. They’d embrace any device that made their lives easier so they could spend more time on the couch living their lives by remote. More and more of them lived by themselves. Chores no longer needed to be shared, they were automated, and what was left, like mowing the lawn, was hired out. With all this independence came loneliness, but like a blank spot in the garden was filled with a gnome, a void in a suburbanites life was filled with a dog, a little furry person to keep them company. Continue reading “Bushy Heads of Fur” →

Meat Loaf

Published on by Raud Kennedy4 Comments

When you sit down, I lie down on the floor near you. When you get up to leave, I rise to follow you from room to room. My favorite room is the kitchen. If you stayed in the kitchen all day long it would be fine with me. Even when you’re not cooking I can smell the scent from the previous night’s meal, and the one before that and before that, going back to my favorite—meatloaf.

You know those aging cowboy actors doing television ads praising beef? Saying there’s nothing like a US prime cut of beef, or something like that? Well, I don’t disagree with them, but boy, could I growl some praise about meatloaf. What a perfect food, seasoned with spices, then cooked to bring out the flavor. No annoying bones to chew around and slow you down, or boring vegetables to pick out. Just beef. And ground up like it’s been already chewed for you so all that’s left to do is swallow. It’s immediate gratification taken to its ultimate extreme. Continue reading “Meat Loaf” →

Secret Admirer

Published on by Raud Kennedy9 Comments

Raud Kennedy - Secret AdmirerThe two dogs stood next to one another, sniffing the dog park ground for news.

“I’ve been sending my two-legger love poems for weeks now.”

“You’ve been doing what?”

“I felt sorry for him and he looked like he needed cheering up, but now he thinks he has a secret admirer, which is true, but he thinks it’s a two-legger woman who’s in love with him. Now I’m even more sorry for him.”

“You got to love the computer. With a pencil in your mouth you can type anything and you don’t even need the pencil to hit the buy button. I can do that with my nose. My two-legger should be getting six cases of canned chili from Preppers-R-Us any day now.” Continue reading “Secret Admirer” →

Sparkatus

Published on by Raud Kennedy3 Comments
Raud Kennedy - Sparkatus
“The Night of the Broken Gates is coming.”

He looked like a genetically modified coconut standing on four fury legs in the middle of the dog park as he shook his head in disagreement with his friend and housemate. “No giant dog is going to fall from the sky and smash everyone’s backyard gate,” he said. “Sparkatus is a myth. Dogs throw his story around and the one about the Night of the Broken Gates when they’re bored and depressed, stuck in the their yard sniffing their own piles of… well, you know what I mean. And who can blame them? Not every dog gets out and travels like we do. I’ve peed on sixty-four trees just this morning.”

“Sparkatus is not a myth. He’s real,” said Coconut’s housemate, a mutt, who was big and round like a watermelon. “I talked to a friend on the way into the park who said he’s seen Sparkatus, that he’s in town, and that he actually sniffed his butt. Can you believe that? Sniffed the but of Sparkatus?” Continue reading “Sparkatus” →

Puppies

Published on by Raud Kennedy2 Comments

Raud Kennedy - Puppies“You’re not supposed to tell your friends the truth,” Ray, a boy of ten, said to Lucy, his golden retriever, who was the best listener in his entire world. She stared back at him and panted her agreement.

“At least not when it’s the real truth of why you think they do the things they do. You’re supposed to keep it secret because they’re not gonna like that part.” Continue reading “Puppies” →