An exercise in randomness, solely for entertainment…and that other thing.

Integrity Exists Plainly

Stagfray Blatchkii would have stood up and said a few words in his friend’s defense, but while his thigh muscles were tensing to bring him to his feet, he realized he’d never really liked the poor bastard anyway, and relaxed back into his seat. The grilling continued for another good twenty minutes, before ending brutally with a dismissal and a threat of a restraining order, and then everybody but the poor bastard went out to lunch.

Days later, Stagfray was out at the park, throwing a ball for a dog that didn’t exist and blinking in astonishment every time the ball appeared again at his feet, wet and gross. This went on for a couple hours, until Stagfray got hungry and went to look for the hotdog cart.

Paying ten dollars for a two-inch weenie, he spotted the poor bastard at a bench, unshaven, coarse and reeking of shame. Stagfray suspected that he was at the end of a rope, metaphorically speaking, and in the stirrings of belated sympathy he bought another weenie. He went and sat beside the poor bastard, though not too close, and offered up the dog of apology.

“What’s this?” the man barked, hoarsely, refusing to look anywhere but right into Stagfray’s blemished eyes, looking for laughter and seeing none. Their eyes reflected hopelessness at each other.

“Food.”

“Food…” He’d eaten, the poor bastard, eaten his pride and dignity, but he’d be thrice damned if he’d ingest his integrity. It was tough and chewy, tasted of defeat, baseness, and was sore to pass. “I’ve eaten.”

“Oh.” Stagfray ate both two-inch weenies, tossing a bun on the ground for his dog that didn’t exist, who scarfed it up, instantly. “How have you been, poor bastard?” he asked, licking satisfaction from his fingers, so as not to smear it on his fine rough-hair suit.

“Horrible,” he lied, because while smelling bad was one thing, being bad was worse, and he’d given that up before his superiors went to lunch. “Just horrible.”

“Oh, I see.” He did see, but didn’t understand, fully. He wondered if he wouldn’t like a bench in the park, but was sure he couldn’t survive without lavender bubble bath. He didn’t know what it was like to smell bad, any more than he knew how not to be that other thing. “I’m so sorry about all this. Would you like to pet my dog?”

“You haven’t got a dog,” the poor bastard pointed out, but secretly hoped that maybe he really did have a dog, because he loved to give out scratches behind the ears and rubs on the tummy.

“Sure I have.” He picked up the ball from the ground. “He just doesn’t exist. Here, take this ball, nevermind how wet it is, and throw it. Go on.”

So the poor bastard threw the ball, and they watched it soar and flap and almost break free of the atmosphere before plopping down on a grassy knoll and rolling, rolling down. They waited, not for long, and the ball was at their feet, wet and gross.

So the poor bastard threw the ball again, pleased and happy in a way that Stagfray could not be, because Stagfray wore his dignity and his pride around for all to see, not in his stomach, heavy and sick.

The day was passing, quickly, so Stagfray said goodbye to the poor bastard and began to walk home before he realized that his dog that didn’t exist was gone. Calm, he went back to the park and the bench but the poor bastard had left, and taken the dog that didn’t exist with him.

Sad, desperate, Stagfray began to gnaw on his dignity, calling out for a dog that didn’t exist. Sobbing, he ran and ran, searching everywhere, until his thigh muscles quivered and he couldn’t stand. He shouted to everyone at the park, the joggers and walkers and bikers, that the poor bastard had taken his dog, his dog that didn’t exist. He yelled and yelled, but no on listened. No one heard a thing.