Writing Prompt 42: Dog
A Quiet Place
There's a picture I have somewhere, buried in my photo archive, a photo of a collection of carved pumpkins lined up on a windowsill. I can’t find it right now. In the meantime, here’s a picture of a sleeping dog.
Cautious people let sleeping dogs lie. Are you cautious, sensible, risk-averse? Or do you enjoy the thrill of adrenaline?
On the scale of caution, I feel I’m somewhere in the middle. I'm not quite the 104-year-old woman who did her second skydive recently (her first she did when she turned 100) and not quite someone who won’t attempt anything outside their comfort zone.
Just… somewhere in the middle.
Anyway. I digress. Hopefully, there’s something in all of this to inspire your writerly imagination. Maybe start with the photo.
Until next time.
The dog buried its claws into the hard-packed earth and began to dig.
There was enough space under the bench for him to make a soft hollow. He turned around and around in the freshly dug earth before settling down in the ground. He curled his long white feathered tail over his paws and rested his head in the loose soil.
Several people walked by, chatting and laughing. The dog opened an eye, blinking one slow blink. He heaved a sigh, his chest rising and falling with his breath.
"Oh, look," said a voice. "A dog. There's a dog under the bench. Look. See?"
A small boy squatted down, bending his head to the side to peer at the sleeping animal. He reached out his hand. The dog raised its lips onto his gums revealing a set of sharp white teeth. A rumbling, quiet growl emanated from his mouth. The boy snatched back his hand. He glanced over his shoulder. His parents stood a few feet away talking about something else.
The boy picked up a stick and poked it at the dog's stomach. The growl became a snarl. The boy stuck the stick into the dog's side again. The dog reached forward and clamped his jaws hard around the boy's soft fleshy arm. The boy squealed and tried to pull his arm away while kicking his heels back towards the dog.
But the dog hung on.
The boy's mother ran forward shouting. The father ran forward and down under the bench. He punched at the dog's ribs. The dog let go of the boy's arm, emitting a howl before slumping back under the bench, whimpering and backing further away from the humans.
Blood trickled in a thin line from the puncture wounds in the boy's arm.
Story first posted in November 2019 // Photo: Tanya Clarke 2019
