Tag: Serial Fiction

Chapter 15 – The Boy Bits Of God

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

While in the backyard immersed in one of my books on advaita and nonduality, something tickles the back of my neck. I swat at it like I would a mosquito and feel a small wet nose, a nose too small to be Fleegle’s.

“What are you doing, Franny?” I ask.

“I’m sniffing your brain for peanuts to check if what Biscuit Breath says is true.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“I’ve concluded you have a coconut for a brain.”

Fleegle looks up from his spot across the lawn. “That’s only his shampoo. It’s scented with coconuts to fool you into thinking he has a bigger brain. Sniff deeply and you’ll smell the peanut deep inside his noggin. But still, it’s an apt metaphor since coconuts are full of water. Even a walnut with its solid insides can outsmart a hollow coconut.”

Franny nudges the book in my lap. “Is that one about dogs too?”

Fleegle gets up and comes over. He sniffs the book. “I bet it’s about coconuts, and I bet it’s titled How To Be a Coconut and Appear Smarter Than You Are.”

I clear my throat to speak. “It’s about how everyone is everyone and there is no other. Franny, me, and even you, Fleegle, are all one and God is experiencing his creation through us as his creations.”

Fleegle yawns. “What I say? Coconuts. You and the coconut are definitely one and the same. God is experiencing the coconut through you.”

“So God is a boy dog?” Franny asks. “Did they neuter him too like all the other boy dogs at the park?”

I know when I’m outnumbered. I set my book down on the grass next to my chair and get up to go inside for more coffee. As I do, I glance over my shoulder and catch Fleegle about to lift his leg on my book. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to review your book.”

Franny follows me toward the house. “If God is neutered, what did they do with his boy bits?”

Dogs can ask the most embarrassing questions.

Next chapter – How To Become a Coyote

Previous chapter – The Biggest Brain of Them All

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 14 – The Biggest Brain Of Them All

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I sit in the backyard half reading a book on dog biology and half watching Fleegle and Franny wrestle in the fresh cut grass. After a while, they tire and start chewing on a long stick, one on either end. Franny is now seven months old and still substantially smaller than Fleegle, especially her head.

I put my book down. “You know, Fleegle, looking at you next to Franny makes me realize just how big your head is. I swear, it’s almost as big as mine.”

Fleegle lets go of the stick. “No, Raud, it’s bigger than yours, especially in the part that counts, my brain. The size of my brain makes yours look like a peanut.”

“Shelled or unshelled?” Franny asks.

I hold the book up in my lap. “This here book about dogs says your brain is the size of a walnut.”

Fleegle tilts his head to the side. “And who wrote this book? A dog?”

“Of course not.”

“Exactly. Just more lies to cover up the biggest lie of them all, that people have more than a peanut for a brain. You’ve heard the saying, ‘victoribus spolia’?”

“Um, no, I haven’t.”

“It’s a Latin quote from Julius Cesar’s dog, Maximus Canis, and it translates as ‘To the victors go the spoils.’”

“Actually, the phrase is attributed to a Jacksonian Democrat in the presidential election of 1828 after Andrew Jackson won the presidency.”

“Which is my point. The winner writes the history books,” he says.

I set my book down again. “So if dogs have such big brains, why are the peanut brains running the world?”

Fleegle shakes his head sadly at me. “Oh, Raud, the peanut brains only think they do. Your brains don’t have the capacity to understand the bigger picture of what’s really going on. You’re just a small part of a vast social experiment us dogs are conducting, but don’t worry, I’ll write up my report on you as favorably as I can.” He licks his lips. I sense a request for a bribe is coming. “Within limits, that is.”

Franny looks over at Fleegle. “So is peanut butter really brain butter from people? I don’t want anymore of that in my Kong if it is.”

Next chapter – The Boy Bits Of God

Previous chapter – Digging

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 13 – Digging

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Fleegle and Franny sit inside the house watching me through the screen door as I plant shrubs in what used to be the front lawn.

As I dig the hole for the last one, Fleegle says, “Raud, let us out. We can help you dig your holes,” Fleegle says.

Franny scratches at the screen door. “And fill them too.”

“We can even do both at the same time,” Fleegle adds.

I lean against my shovel. “We tried that, and then you saw the neighbor’s cat across the street and went for a chase.”

“He taunted me. He called me slow poke. How could I not chase him?”

Franny wags her tail. “I didn’t chase the cat, I’m a good girl, I was chasing the slow poke.”

Fleegle gives her a look and grunts his dissatisfaction. “Please, Raud, let us out. I need to mark all of those new shrubs as mine before the other dogs in the neighborhood do.”

“So you want me to let you out so you can pee on my new plants?”

“It’s fertilizer, Raud. They need it to grow and thrive.”

I snort my derision at that. “The lawn in the backyard shows otherwise.”

“But Raud, you need supervision. You’re doing it all wrong.”

Franny looks at Fleegle. “You mean there’s a right and wrong to digging a hole?”

“Of course not. It’s just about the digging, but he doesn’t know that.”

I put my hand on my hip and give the two of them a hard stare. “I do have ears, you know, and though my hearing may not be as sharp as the two of yours, I can still hear you over here just fine. You need to learn to whisper if you’re going to talk about someone behind their back.”

Fleegle stands up and his ears go back. “Speaking of which, you better look behind you.”

Franny paws at the screen door. “It’s the gnome, Raud.”

“I’m not falling for that.”

“But he’s carrying a sharp stick,” Fleegle says.

“Ouch!” I shout and dance away from the source of the sharp pain in my calf. “Bloody wasp. Why sting me? I did nothing to you.”

“Bloody gnome is more like it,” Franny says.

There’s no gnome, only a wasp buzzing me. I head inside to wait for it to find trouble somewhere else.

Fleegle moves aside as I open the screen door. “If you dug up my yard it wouldn’t bother me, but I like digging. The gnome apparently doesn’t.”

Franny slowly shakes her head. “Nah, it’s not the digging that set him off, it’s taking his truck out for a spin that pissed him off. He must really identify with that truck, I mean, look at him. He’s so small, even smaller than me, and the truck is so huge. It even has an extra step just to climb into it.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “A compensating gnome? Now I’ve heard it all, Franny the Freudian.” I close the screen door behind me. “Let me know when the wasp is gone.”

Next chapter – The Biggest Brain Of Them All

Previous chapter – The Sky Is Falling

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 12 – The Sky Is Falling

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I’m greeted at the front door by a wide-eyed Fleegle with his ears pinned back with worry.

“Raud, thank the god of stray people you found your way home. Just before you got here I heard this terribly loud rumble and the ground shook all through the house. I thought the sky had finally begun to fall and was crashing into the driveway. Then just as quickly as it began, it stopped.”

“That was me pulling into the driveway.”

“No it wasn’t. I know the sound of our car from miles away. It sounds nothing like that.”

“I wasn’t driving the Element, I was in the truck. I finally got it running again after sitting in the driveway for five years.”

“We have a truck?”

“Yep, that old Ford F250 from the 70s. I just realized it’s been sitting there broken down longer than you are old.”

“You mean that giant lawn ornament you climb up on to trim the tree next to it? I didn’t know that was ours.”

“That’s the one, but it’s not like it’s sitting on blocks in the middle of the front lawn. It’s been parked in the driveway.”

“With the ivy growing over it,” he says.

“Now I can trim the ivy without climbing under the truck.”

“Uh-ho, you better lock this door, Raud,” Fleegle says, nudging the front door closed behind me with his nose.

“Why?”

“You’ve gone and taken the gnomes home for a spin around the neighborhood. He’s been living in that truck.”

“I’ve done one better than that, I’ve loaded the truck bed up with two cubic yards of Douglas-fir bark dust. I’m finally getting rid of that front lawn.”

“The gnome isn’t going to like that. We better shut and lock all the windows and doors. He could attack any minute. You never know what an angry gnome will do.”

“There are no gnomes in the front yard. There’s nothing out there but a dead lawn.”

“Raud, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly known for your powers of observation.”

Franny ambles down the hallway from the bedroom, yawning. “I just had the strangest dream. I dreamt a little guy with a long beard and a pointy red hat crawled in through the bedroom window.”

Fleegle slow wags his head. “And she ain’t talking about Santa.”

*   *   *

That evening when I climb in bed I feel something very itchy against my legs. I push back the covers to see what it is. “Okay, which one of you tracked in the bark dust?”

Fleegle and Franny exchange a look, then both say to me, “Not us, Raud, it was the gnome.”

Next chapter – Digging

Previous chapter – Truth

First Chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 11 – Truth

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

While I stand next to the kitchen counter listening to the coffeemaker percolate, Fleegle ambles in from the backyard, followed closely by his blond shadow, Franny.

“I recognize that smell,” he says. “I thought you quit drinking that stuff.”

“What smell?” Franny asks. “You mean that burning smell?”

“I used to drink coffee but I quit,” I say to Franny.

Fleegle sits and looks up at me. “Green tea just not doing it for you, eh? You should try chewing the bark off of a stick.”

Franny tilts her head to the side. “What’s coffee?”

Fleegle glances at her. “I don’t really know. He never shares it. But I bet it taste like chocolate.”

“What’s chocolate taste like?”

“I’ve never had it except in my dreams but I know it’s good.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he hogs it all for himself and doesn’t even let me lick the bowl.”

“Not even the spoon?” she asks.

“Nope. Nothing.”

“Have you tried threatening to pee in his bed?”

Fleegle tilts his head at her. “Why would I do that? That’s where I sleep.”

“You don’t actually do it, you just make him think you’ll do it.”

I look down at Franny, trying to remember if Fleegle was ever this devious as a puppy. “Hey, Franny, do you hear that?” I say very excitedly. Her ears perk up. “Squirrels!” I half shout.

And off the two of them go, but Fleegle stops half way out the door and turns around. “I’m not falling for that. The bird feeder has been empty for weeks and the squirrels are taking their meals in someone else’s yard.”

“I’ll fill the feeder for you today after my coffee.”

“You said coffee was bad for you. I distinctly remember you pacing the house in the middle of the night saying, ‘never again will I drink coffee’.”

“I’ve written nothing but ‘to do’ lists since I quit drinking coffee, not a single short story, not even a poem or a joke.”

“You blame your writer’s block on green tea?”

I nod. “Yep. The coffee is the reward I get for writing and green tea just isn’t much of a biscuit for me.”

Franny wags her tail. “Writer’s block? Is that something I can chew on because I really need to chew on something right now.” She grabs Fleegle’s back leg in her mouth. “Wait, did he just say biscuit?” she says with his foot still in her mouth.

Fleegle ignores her, trying to shake his leg loose from the grip of her sharp little teeth. “But why is coffee not bad anymore?”

“The truth is I say a lot of things and sometimes I get it wrong.”

He finally gets his leg loose. “Ah, I get it, the truth is negotiable. So just how many biscuits did it take to bend the truth about coffee?”

The coffeemaker finishes percolating. I grab a mug and pour. “Well, in my case, it’s two sugars and a splash of cream,” I say with a smile.

*   *   *

Anyone else also have their writing habits linked to a specific drink or ritual?

Next chapter – The Sky Is Falling

Previous chapter – Tug Toy

Chapter 1 – The Puppy

Chapter 9 – Fleegle’s Biscuit

Published on by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

Fleegle blasts out of the bamboo, a biscuit sticking out of his mouth, and jets across the lawn and into the bamboo on the other side of the yard. Moments later, Franny runs awkwardly from the first bamboo, across the lawn after him and into the second bamboo, growling the whole way.

Then Fleegle blasts from the second bamboo, across the lawn, and dives into the first bamboo. A moment later Franny stumbles out of the second bamboo, makes it about halfway across the lawn and plops down panting.

She looks all around her, then her gaze lands on me. “Where’d the fat head with biscuit breath go?”

“Don’t tell her, Raud,” Fleegle calls out from his hiding place in the bamboo.

Franny sniffs the air, then gets up and scent tracks Fleegle to his spot. He emerges from the bamboo, crunching on the last of the biscuit he was carrying.

Franny looks at the crumbs stuck to his face. “Now if you had shared your biscuit, I wouldn’t have been able to find you by your scent because I would’ve smelled like biscuit too.”

“If I had shared my biscuit, you wouldn’t have been chasing me at all.”

Next chapter – Tug Toy

Previous chapter – Soap

First chapter – The Puppy