"I suppose so."
"Do we own it?"
"Do we own anything?"
"Nobody owns."
"Yes, we own a typewriter."
Intermission.
"This typewriter is..."
"...Is it, now?"
"Very much so. I composed a story on it."
"And you couldn't before?"
"I could. But it never made it past my mind. Isn't this wonderful! Thank you, humanity, for making my dreams possible!"
"Let me read the story."
"If you wish."
Silence.
"And the final verdict is..."
"It was horrid."
"Oh, come on. Don't be harsh."
"I like to don it as 'honesty.' And it is honest."
"It's my first story..."
"I want to hear what's on your mind's pages; I don't want a translation onto real paper. It only mutes your true genius, love."
"Oh, yeah. Now you say that."
"Tell me a story. An old one, but give it a new twist."
"So pushy. So, so pushy."
"Well?"
"Well. There was once a small boy who herded... Ehm... Dogs. Yes, dogs. One time, this little brat wanted attention and called to his mama: 'HEY MAMA! Rin-tin-tin escaped, and with the mortgage papers, too!' The mama ran out of the trailer home with a broom and found Rin-tin-tin in the corner of the herding pen. 'STUPID MUTT!' she cried as poor Rin-tin-tin rin-tin-winced all the way into the corner."
"I don't think I've heard this one."
"Let me finish! So Rin-tin-tin turns very resigned and doesn't show up at meal-time anymore. He doesn't play with Lassie and Fido, but instead he just chews the fence wood very, very quietly. The little herder brat still is ignored by his mama, and he calls to her a few weeks after the Rin-tin-wincing incident: 'HEY MAMA! Lassie's been sneaking 'round the barn at night with some burly male German shepherd!' The mama ran out of the trailer home, but she didn't open the door because by now there was none."
"Where'd it go?"
"Sold it."
"Why?"
"Why else? Anyways, the mama ran out with a rake and yelled straight in Lassie's ear: 'HEY HEY YOU STUPID MUTT! I GIVES YOU THE BEST FOOD IN ALL THE COUNTY, YOU SNEAK 'ROUND WITH A BURLESQUE GERMAN SHEPHERD?! YOU DISGRACE OUR ENGLISH SURNAMES!' I personally think Lassie got the raw end of the bone, ironically. The little boy had, in fact, never seen a German shepherd in his life. Neither had Lassie. Lassie joined the ranks of the ruined with Rin-tin-wince--as the little herder brat now tauntingly called him--and never joined another feast of leftovers. She chewed the fence wood with Rin-tin-wince and sat in silence at his paws. Now Fido grew terribly jealous of the two, and believed that he was being ostracized for being the only happy one left in the lot. He grew impatient for a companion and kind word, and turned to the little herder brat for attention. 'You, hey. Stupid mutt,' the boy mused with kindness. He embraced Fido in his skinny arms, and Fido could smell the fear in the herder's breath. He absolutely reeked of the stuff! Fido stuck his nose inside the boy's mouth and the boy bit down, hard, and ran the dog out into the world adjacent to the fence. Outside!"
"This..."
"I'm almost done."
"Is..."
"I swear."
"I don't understand."
"You will. So the dog ran and ran until the sun stood at a standstill on the horizon. A lonely little speck of light could be seen at the base of the sylvan hills, and the dog decided to turn back for mealtime, even if Lassie and Rin-tin-wince wouldn't join him. He sprinted back into the direction the sun had faced earlier, but Fido was notorious for a lack of sense of direction. Fido slept through the night on a bed of dead bees, and awoke the next morning to a sky with both moon and sun present. The dog continued on his search for home. He smelled the fear before he saw it: the little herder brat sat at the steps of a door-less, windowless trailer house with a broom and a rake. The mama could be seen through the window--or I guess now it was more like a hole--and could be seen with a frying pan and a spatula. Lassie and Rin-tin-wince could be seen chewing wood. It was the same scene he had left, as if the scene had suspended itself and awaited his regal arrival. Gartered and smuggled in with pride, the little dog pawed his way to the not-door, until the fear was pungent enough to choke the most pugnacious of horses. The mama, noting Fido's return, came out with the spatula and slid a hunt of fried meat to the dry ground. 'Eat up, fellow.' She turned to her son and, grabbing his ear, shouted with a rage only that mama could accumalate: 'SON, YOU LIED. THAT DOG BEEN HERE AND RETURNED. YOU SAY THAT DOG RUN AWAY! WELL HE COME BACK! YOU STUPID MUTT! STUPID MUTT!' The stupid mutt speech resonated through the sofa's holes, through the roached on the frying pan, and through the boy's shoes as he scrambled down the steps in fear, reeking of it still. The next day, Fido saw the stupid mutts chewing on the fence wood and unhappily munched away on his fried meat leftovers."
"The end?"
"You got it."
"That was certainly an improvement from what you typed."
"What did I type? I can't even recall; it was around 4 a.m. last morning that I wrote that."
"You wrote as follows: 'Once there was a herder boy with three sheep. His family was poor, obviously, since they only had three sheep. When the sheep would seem too placid and start to anger him with their serene elation, he'd whine to his mama that they'd been getting into trouble. The mama would punish the sheep into its demise of emotion. The boy seemed pleased by this, because no one wanted to listen to him unless he was talking about the sheep. And he refused to talk positively about the sheep, because of their elated serenity. When he realized only one sheep remained, he felt much sorrow for the lonesome sheep and loved it as his own until it ran away out of fear of punishment and betrayal. The boy had nothing, not even a sheep to herd, and the family had not a sheep to their name to bequeath unto the boy. The family was the pitiful laughing stock of the city, and the boy was the pitiful laughing stock of the gods and the demons. The world was filled with laughter for years that passed from those days, and sheep were sheered and made into woolen coats that children laugh at when they wear them. The END."
"That is horrible."
"That is."
"I don't think I was awake when I wrote it. I dreamed it."
"This is why we should never tell our children to count sheep before they sleep. Foolish nonsense, all of it."
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