Short Story – Gnawing the Bone

Rise and Shine

Published on September 19, 2026 by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

On Saturday morning, Marvin was shopping online for some new clothes. Those socks look nice, he thought, and that shirt will look cool with my new jacket. Then a wave of fatigue hit him and he leaned back in his chair. He felt like the website was leading him around like a cow by its nose ring. Buy these socks. “Buy this shirt. It’ll look good with the jacket you bought yesterday.” It was all so performative, like a costume for a play. But he wasn’t an actor going on stage, just a dude going to his 9 to 5. None of it was him. He felt empty, like a poser feigning being ‘Marvin’.

He emptied the shopping cart and turned off his computer, then went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup and added some cream. As he watched the cream swirl around the spoon he stirred, an epiphany hit him. Everything in his life, from this morning coffee in front of him, to the toothpaste he used at night before bed, was driven by seeking dopamine. Bright smile, happy face, meant hot girlfriend. Dopamine. Was there anything that he did that didn’t involve it? He wondered about his friendships. Were those driven by it too? How could they not be? He thought. He called the ones who made him happy, dopamine, and dodged the ones who didn’t, which led to relief, a sort of backhanded dopamine.

He took a big sip of his coffee, steam rising around his face. No wonder coffee was so addictive. Like mainlining dopamine. Just like sex, another powerful source. Was he really that superficial? Led around by a chemical in his brain? He thought he was deeper than that. But what if my thoughts aren’t even my own? He wondered and put his coffee down. But that couldn’t be. At least some of his thoughts were his own or else he wouldn’t be thinking what he was. Marvin somehow found relief in that.

The wave of fatigue was pushed back by the caffeine, but he still felt like an empty shell on a beach wishing the tide would come in and take him out to sea. He sensed a creeping hollowness inside his mind and it made his skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. He was saved by his dog, Hagler, who came over and leaned against his thigh, saying he wanted to be petted. Marvin decided to do him one better and reached for his leash to go for a walk.

The following morning, Marvin was lying in bed, listening to the gentle patter of the rain against the window. He was in no rush to get out of bed. It was raining outside and he was warm under his covers. But then he found himself sliding out of bed and heading toward the bathroom before he’d actually decided to do so, and it happened so quickly that his mind lay claim to the decision. As he stood at the sink brushing his teeth, he stared back at his eyes in the mirror and knew otherwise.

He tried to dismiss the thought by assuming he was just on morning autopilot, but it felt different than that, more like someone else was in the driver’s seat. No, not someone, but something undefinable. And then that empty feeling started creeping up on him again. He shook his head and spat out the toothpaste.

When it happened again the next morning, he started to question his free will. If it wasn’t him who decided when he got out of bed, then who or what did? When he got to work, it was still on his mind, bugging him. Whenever he took some small action like scratching his ear, he’d ask himself, was that me? So he looked up his experience online and found it had a name. It was called the ‘Libet Experiment’ and it was a documented thing. It said we were playing catch up with our body’s decisions by a half second or more. So much for free will, he thought. Why wasn’t everyone talking about this? Probably because it wasn’t in the best interest of whatever was making the decisions.

He only experienced it in the mornings when his mind was still quiet from sleep. The rest of the day it was business as usual. He was in the driver’s seat, but he sensed that might just be an illusion because the pace of the day was faster and hid the lag.

When he drove home that evening, he was thinking about how the dopamine seeking acted as a cover for a lack of free will. He was seriously spooked out by the thought when Hagler met him at the front door with his leash in his mouth. Marvin stared at the dog, wondering who made Hagler’s decisions for him. Was it the same entity that got him out of bed in the mornings? he wondered. Maybe they were both just two different costumes of the same entity.

Hagler sat and dropped the leash on the floor. He stared back at Marvin and Marvin knew they were going for a walk. Not later, but right now. Marvin shook his head. Maybe Hagler was running the show. Well, if that was the case, Marvin knew at least he’d get his exercise and eat plenty of biscuits.

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God

Published on March 27, 2025March 27, 2025 by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I used to daydream that my dogs understood me when I spoke to them. I’d make up their responses and speak out loud for them in a goofy voice. They came to recognize this goofy dog voice of mine and would get excited when they heard it. I’d carry on conversations between my dogs and myself in these voices, a sensible one for me and a goofy one for them, imagining how cool it would be if it were real, if they really were thinking what I was saying in this goofy dog voice. I used to think it would make life with dogs so much simpler. Ask them what they wanted, and they could tell me. I’d done this all my life up till a few days ago, when I no longer had to.

“I’m not eating this,” Hamish says, putting his nose up at the kibble I just scooped into his bowl.

Franny looks up from her already empty bowl. “I’ll eat it.”

I give her a stern look. “No you won’t. You already had yours.”

“But I’m still hungry.”

“No. You need to lose weight,” I say.

“But if I lose weight, I’ll be cold and light as an earth worm and the birds will carry me away to some far away tree branch and eat me.”

Hamish shoves his bowl away with his snout. “I’m not eating this. It has rat poop in it.”

“So that’s what that was.” Huckleberry licks the crumbs off his lips. “I’ve been wondering all week what that new flavor was.”

Hamish pokes at his food with his snout. “It’s been there since he opened the new bag.”

“What?” I ask. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God” →

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues

Published on November 10, 2024November 10, 2024 by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I get the stepladder from the garage, open it up under the flickering kitchen ceiling light and up I climb. My three dogs gather around to watch. We spend so much time together it’s as if I can hear their thoughts.

“What’s Raud doing up on that ladder?” wonders Hamish, a honey-brown Labrador and golden retriever mix and the youngest of the three.

“This is new. Maybe it involves food,” thinks Franny, the calorically challenged yellow Lab.

“Is there a ball up there?” wonders Huckleberry, the chocolate Lab. He’s obsessed with anything that can be thrown so that he can retrieve it. But some things are better for retrieving, like his ball, which is always nearby. At the moment he’s dropped it at the base of the ladder. “You could really throw it far from up there, Raud.”

As I unscrew the knob that holds the frosted glass bowl over the light, the memory of installing these lights to replace the fluorescent tube lights crosses my mind’s eye. The fluorescent light felt too much like an office. I put the knob in my shirt pocket and lower the glass bowl, placing it on the step ladder’s fold-out shelf where the paint bucket goes, dried blue and cream paint drippings surround it. I check the bulb’s fit. It’s loose like I thought, so I tighten it, then replace the glass bowl and screw the knob back in place.

Standing on the stepladder, I look about for the next distraction, avoiding going back to the drawing lessons on the drafting table. Learning to draw cartoons takes more concentration than I realized. Outside, it’s raining hard. The gentle patter on the patio awning has become a steady growl. Though it’s only midday, it’s dusk out there.

When lighting strikes so close there’s no separation between the flash and the boom, my whole body startles so badly I lose my balance. As I fall, I reach out to grab the edge of the kitchen counter, but I’m too slow and the blue Formica swoops up toward my head. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues” →

The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna

Published on September 18, 2017 by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

It’s Monday. I sit on a park bench across from the restaurant where the guy I’m following has gone inside for lunch. I sink my teeth into my sandwich, a foot-long Italian I got at the corner deli, when a mellow, slightly slurred voice says from behind me, “That sure is a big sandwich, one of the biggest I’ve seen yet.”

Portland has a transient problem. Following my guy through the Southwest Park Blocks was a begathon of the homeless asking for spare change, but not my dimes and quarters. One got snarky when I offered him that. He wanted nothing less than a fiver.

I don’t normally spend my afternoons following people, but I got a call last night from an old girlfriend I hadn’t spoken to since I shot the photos for her wedding. As Eva and I small-talked on the phone, I did the math. It had been seven years since their wedding and the title of that old Billy Wilder movie, The Seven Year Itch, popped into my head.

I’ve never been very good at the long-term relationship thing. I must have ADD when it comes to relationships. How do people do it? How do they keep it interesting? After years together don’t they wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? Or considering how much we base our identity on who we are with, do they ever daydream of being someone else? Seven years seems to be as good a time for that as any. But for me and my attention span, seven years would be poison ivy from hell.

Eva was calling about her husband, Stan. She was worried about him. “Call it what you will, women’s intuition, but I know something is up with him. He’s acting odd. He’s not himself. I think he’s up to something.” She still had that soft voice I remembered from our time together that sounded kind even when she was voicing her suspicions, a trait I don’t remember her having. I guess people change.

“And you think he’s stepping out on you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I appreciate the chance to catch up, Eva, but why call me with this? Isn’t this what you talk about with a girlfriend?”

“Actually, I’ve hashed it out a lot.” She cleared her throat, paused for a moment, then rushed on. “It’s like this. I could ask Stan to his face and he’d deny anything and everything. You never got to know him but that’s how he is, at least that’s how he is now, not so much back when we married. I need proof that he’s stepping out. Hard proof. That or to know what’s making him act weird. And then I thought of you. You’re handy with a camera, you can get me that proof. I can put it in his face and say, hey, what’s up with this?”

I had learned to keep my nose out of other people’s business. “It sounds cheesy but wouldn’t a private investigator be better suited for this? Someone with experience?”

“A stranger? Ugh.” She pauses and I picture her scrunching up her face in distaste. “Look, Dixon, you and I haven’t kept in touch but we remained friends after we dated and I always respected your honesty.”

I laughed. “Not everyone feels that way.”

“That’s their loss. I’m not asking you for a freebie. I can pay you. Come on, what else do you have going during the week? It’s not like a lot of people get married on a Monday or Tuesday and need a photographer.”

She had a point; business had been slow. Not a lot of Millennials were getting married so they could start a family in their parents’ basement. Besides, being asked to look into someone’s personal business was different than just sticking my nose in it. “What do you want me to do exactly?”

“Just follow him around and take some photos if gets up to anything, especially during and after lunch. If he’s up to anything it’s then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“His phone habits. He’s hard to reach during that time, he never picks up, and it’s a while before he calls back. Plus, he’s around someone with a cat. I’ve seen the hair on his clothes. I know lots of women with cats but very few men.”

My imagination ran with the intimate details of their failing marriage. We settled on a daily rate, she gave me the pertinent info on where they lived and where Stan worked, and I told her I’d get back to her.

* * *

I can see Stan through the restaurant window as I chew my sandwich.

“That mayonnaise sure does smell good,” the guy behind me slurs.

I don’t turn around to look. Acknowledging him will just encourage him to hang around. His slurred speech paints enough of a mental picture of who is behind me and where this is going. I don’t want to see him and endanger my appetite. Though it’s curious the drunk has asked about my sandwich because they usually just want cash to buy more fortified wine. Who eats when they can get juiced?

The drunk slurps as he smacks his lips. “Are you going to eat all of it? That’s a lot of sandwich, even for a big guy like you.” Continue reading “The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna” →

Dirt

Published on September 29, 2016October 4, 2016 by Raud Kennedy2 Comments

“Franny, don’t eat that,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dirt.”

“So?”

“Dogs aren’t supposed to eat dirt.”

“How would you know that? You’re not a dog.”

“Thank god for that or I’d have to floss the dirt out of my teeth every night before bed.”

Fleegle sniffs the dirt pile Franny has been eating. “He probably read it on one of his books on dogs.”

Franny’s tongue is dark brown with dirt. “Another book written by a two-legger.”

Dirt crumbs stick to Fleegle’s nose. “A two-legger who wishes he were a dog.”

“Yea, so he could eat dirt without being picked on by the other two-leggers,” Franny says and picks up another clod of dirt in her mouth. She looks at me. “Want some? Fleegle’s teaching me to share.”

Next Bartering with Biscuits – The Princess

Previous Bartering with Biscuits – Sharing the Canine Way

First Bartering with Biscuits – The Puppy