Weirdly Barking

I’ve started taking a little stroll every weekend, I don’t know if you’ve noticed how much I suffer every time I have to walk more than a few steps, so I decided to do something about it, doing some exercise, eating better and not just junk food and a salad as I’ve been doing since I started living completely alone. The biggest problem I’ve had is this doggie, it looks like the cutest dog ever, I would love to befriend this beautiful creature, but I don’t think that I have a chance, every time I walk down this street it starts barking like crazy, maybe the dog just happens to hate me more than it should.

“Hey buddy, calm down, I promise you that I’m good, not a bad person for sure” – I feel so dumb talking to the dog, especially because it doesn’t matter what I do, it just hates me.

The first time I didn’t do anything weird, I was just walking, normally, it started barking as soon as we crossed eyes.

The second time I tried to ignore it, but apparently, the dog didn’t want to ignore me, I ran as fast as I could and somehow managed to avoid being bitten.

The third try, this was the best one, I brought some food to the dog, I thought this would be my moment, the moment when I would finally manage to be a friend with the dog, or at least avoid being seen as a kind of menace for it, I failed miserably and had to run away… again.

Now here I am, the fourth try, this should have been the one that finally made the dog love me, or at least that was the idea that I had, the dog jumped to me, directly to bite me, but it couldn’t, the dog wasn’t able to touch me at all.

“Surprised?”

The voice of a man surprised me, an old man who could easily look like a caring grandpa was standing behind me, he really surprised me as I didn’t notice him there.

“Uh, yes, but mister… Are you…?”

“You mean to ask if I am a ghost, am I right? Then let me tell you, I am”

Until now this happens to be the first time that I have experienced something like this, not only a dead dog, so I can see more than dead people, but this is my first time finding someone who has already accepted his death, someone who already knows about being dead and realized that they aren’t a part of my world anymore.

“How come you can see us boy?”

“Well, to be completely honest, I don’t have a glimpse of an idea to tell you, I’m only a bit sure that I can talk with you like you were still on my own reality”

“You know how interesting that sounds? Boy, you should be making lots of money!”

The old man was surprisingly funny, he almost looked like a parody of the classic master of a random 80s movie, a little guy with a thin body who looks like you could break him with just pushing him a little, add his weird expressions and you have a weird funny little man, this seems like a weird situation to meet someone like him.

“Old man, why aren’t you afraid of the idea of being dead? Why do you act like being seen as a ghost is just a cool thing and not something almost traumatic?”

“Do you think I can still be traumatized? Not only I’m a ghost boy, but I also happen to be an old guy who has seen more than you could think of”

I think that it makes sense, he must have died with such an old age that he had little more to learn, almost like he had seen all this world had to offer to him.

“What’s your name boy?”

“Adam, what about yours sir?”

“Adam, that’s a nice name boy, I’m Robert, you can call me Bob if you want to”

Bob? That’s such a weirdly normal name for how quirky this man seems to be.

“And sir-“

“Bob, call me Bob”

“Ok, Mr. Bob, why are you here, why is that dog always barking at me, shouldn’t you be controlling it a bit? At least for the sake of stupidly weird people who are actually able to see your mascot”

“Start by dropping the “mister”, I’m just Robert- Bob, I mean I’m just Bob”

“It’s ok mister, I mean, Bob, just Bob”

“That is, you’re doing well boy, and by the way, stop calling the dog an “it”, you should have realized by now that the dog is a girl”

I don’t know how I should have realized it by now, but at least I can start figuring something.

“There’s a bunch of little cubs around here, you should go look them up, Cake, the doggie, is guarding them, her children”

Now I feel so stupid, not only it took me a while to realize that this was a ghost of a dog, but I also wasn’t capable of realizing why I was seen as a menace, I only tried to befriend someone who didn’t hate me to begin with, just a mother who loves her children, her cubs.

“Give me a second, if they’re just cubs then it means that they had their mother until a little ago, what happened here”

“Believe me, not all people care about others like we would like to believe”

“You mean that she…”

“She was killed by a classic case of an idiot who didn’t care about others”

After meeting people who would suffer forever because they took someone’s life, even if it wasn’t out of an egotistic reason, it’s hard to accept that there are people out there who wouldn’t mind killing, be it a person or a dog, how are you able to live freely after killing something? How do you live without feeling remorse during every second of your life from here on?

“Adam, you’re a good boy, I can see it in your face, you don’t understand it, but there are bad people out there, is as simple as something can be”

I know that it is basically a normal thing to realize nowadays, but when someone who is already dead tells you about it, you realize that some things have more meaning than what any random person could tell you.

“Now boy, you know what you have to do, go help the cubs”

The dog finally decided to stop barking at me, maybe she finally stopped recognizing me as a menace, or maybe the old man acknowledging me as a good guy helped me here, not like it really matters, the important fact is that she will allow me to go help them, so I must use this as a chance to show that I am not someone who would cause any harm to them.

“Boy, Adam, do you know anyone who would look up for these little doggies”

They look almost exactly like their mother, black fur and a lot of brown spots, not like they are going to win any contest, but they’re cute enough to feel bad about them being abandoned here, or maybe it's just my love for dogs that makes me think fondly about most of them, even those usually considered ugly or maybe even the dangerous ones can look really cute to me.

Alongside Bob I started looking everywhere, someone must want them, there must be a single person around who would like a dog around here.

“It seems like no one wants them, Bob”

“Don’t be in such a rush boy, wait until you can be sure about it to tell me that you failed, as of now this is a mission in progress”

Bob seems to be the kind of person who loves to cheer the others, the kind of optimistic person who should have a job like mine, instead of the pessimistic idiot that I am.

I kept walking around the town for a while, at least two hours more, the poor cubs didn’t find a family, it almost makes me feel like the idea of bad people existing had to do anything with this, obviously not anyone can take care of these two, but when you get frustrated and don’t know what to do is easy to blame the others, even if it maybe isn’t making any sense.

“Adam!” – I think that I know this voice.

“Oh Lisa, what a surprise to find you out of the hospital”

I’m not going to lie, as pretty as she can be, I don’t need her noisy attitude around me right now.

“Why don’t you ask her Adam? Even a noisy girl like her could help you”

I nodded to accept his idea, is not like I stopped loving how she looks, but I’ve just been a bit stressed these last few days, but more important than that, how does Bob know what I think about her? This man really knows how to read people-

“Oh Adam, those doggies look so cute, are they yours?” – Thank you, Lisa, for giving me an opening to ask you

“Their mom died some days ago, I’m looking for someone who would like to look after them”

“Really? Then this is my chance, would you like me to take them to my house” – Wow, this was a good idea then, Bob really had a good idea by asking her, I would’ve only avoided her and keep looking for someone else, my mind has been too dizzy since I realized that whatever I’m looking at could be out of this world, so my ideas have been really messy for the last few weeks.

Lisa took them, I walked them to her home and proceeded to take my leave, but then one of them came to me, I wasn’t expecting it, apparently caring about a living creature can make them like you, quite a discovery if you ask me.

“She likes you, didn’t you notice until now?” – Lisa was right, now that I think about it she licked me every time she could, maybe I’m just too blind to things like that.

“Maybe I should take you little one”

Both dogs now had a newly found house, mine would be this little girl, while Lisa took her equally nice looking brother, I’m not going to lie, it feels cool to have something that gives me a relation to her, but the best part was finally helping the dog, now her cubs would be able to live happily.

The spirit doggie showed a last sign of love, she licked both of her children and started glowing, just like every other spirit I’ve seen, she was resting now.

“So now I must also take my leave boy”

“It was nice to meet you to old man, hopefully, you’ll be able to rest now alongside your dog”

“I think you made a bit of a mistake boy, did I ever say that she was mine?”

He was right, I just assumed it, but since he was accustomed to the idea of being dead, it didn’t make any sense for him to be the owner of a dog who died just a little ago.

The old man turned back, he started walking down the street while waving his hand.

“Take care Forte boy!”

The man kept walking until I couldn’t see him anymore, he was a nice person to meet, even if he is way too weird for me…

“Wait for a second, didn’t I only tell him my first name?”

I guess this old man is weirder than I thought...