The Boy Made From Soap And The Dog You Won’t Forget

By: Jordan Seifert

I had always considered my first priority to be cleanliness. When everything is gone, and you have died, nobody will care about your personality… or your skills… or anything like that. All they’ll see is the way you look. Your entire worth will be measured by how well bathed you appear. The ironic aspect of that is I could never take a bath, or a shower, or go swimming, or play in the rain. I could never sit in the sun and bathe in its heated rays, or even eat a hot meal. I don’t want to melt after all.

I was born to my mother and father at the age of three. My birthday is September 5th until September 9th. The doctors said there was no hope for my survival. I can’t remember it, but somehow I know that my mother looked down at me and felt differently. Felt that I’d be okay. She grabbed me in her arms and began rocking me back and forth, and right then she knew what she’d call me.
“I’m going to call you Bubbles.” Mother knew I’d be alright even though I was made from soap. I can see my smooth soap skin out my sorry soap eyes; tiny pupils were whittled out that I can plainly see from. Inside of me, beyond my view, I can feel my soapy heart pumping out liquid anti-bacterial blood through my veins and arteries. I have a thin layer of adisoap tissue surrounding all my soap organs, and I can taste soap on my tongue at every moment of every day. It’s delicious.

I’m told I see the world a little differently. People move in more directions, objects appear slightly dirtier and food does not seem appetizing. I’m also the only one who sees my sister for who she is. She’s older than I am, and has a body made from flesh and blood. Her rejection of me has always been evident, but I pretend I don’t notice. I pretend my feelings aren’t hurt. For months she wanted to buy a perfume called “Sarah’s Spray: For Girls Who Are True To Their Heart.” It was very popular amongst her friends, and finally I bought it for her fourteenth birthday. She pretended to love it, but I saw her throw it out.

I have a very close friend named Blue. He’s made from mouthwash. Just like me, an anomaly. We play together and have a lot of good times. He calls me B, and I call him B. We’re more similar than you’d think. Blue’s body splashes as he walks, but he always pulls himself together. He sees things even more differently than I do. With no eyes to speak of, he sees from every part of his body at once--the whole picture one hundred percent of the time. Also, he sleeps in a bathtub. It wasn’t too long ago that Blue rang my doorbell and told me he had something important to show me.

We walked down seven streets and up to Blue’s house, where his mother was baking. It smelled good.

“Okay B,” he whispered, “Open the door and just… look inside.” I ran my hand across the door knob, picking up all the dirt on it, noticing it’d been a long time since it’d been last cleaned. I shuddered and slowly opened the door, letting loose an audible creak. And apparently a bark. I peered through the crack and looked inside. Blue had tricked me more than once, so I was sure to be cautious. And then I heard it again; that same bark. There it was! A little dog! As he wagged his tail, little beads of water splashed against the floor. He was made entirely from sweat, and smelled real bad.
“So,” Blue asked, “What do you think?”

“Well… He’s a nice dog. You keeping’ him?” B just looked at me.

“No. I was hoping you were.” My jaw fell open, and I sputtered in disapproval.

“I can’t do that. He’s dirty!”

“So? I can’t keep him!” B’s voice squeaked.

“And why can’t you?” He explained to me that he wanted to, but

“He keeps licking me and he thinks I’m delicious. He’ll drink me right up, and that’d be good for neither of us. Nobody wants to eat soap though.” I took offence to that.

The dog started climbing at my leg. Arf, arf! I couldn’t see any expression in its face, but it’s entire body lit up with determination and happiness, pressing itself against me. I agreed to take the dog.

“Okay, my little sweat dog. Let’s go home.” I decided to call him Dr. Dribble. My parents didn’t like him, and my sister was grossed out by the way he looked, but they let me keep him anyways. Just in my own room.

“Bubbles, I know you’re special and all that, but that dog is something else. You know that, right?” my sister said, the disdain for Dr. D and myself clear in her voice. She tried to hide it, but being dishonest always made her feel dirty. And when someone’s dirty, instinctually I just want to reach out and clean them.

The day after Dr. D and I got settled, I took him to the vet. While sitting in the waiting room, I noticed two distinct little imprints in my leg. They were from where the good Doctor had pressed up against me. I realized I’d have to keep him from touching me, or figure out something if I was gonna keep him. He could flatten me right out otherwise. The doctor called us in and Dr. D jumped right up on the table and licked the vet.

“Haven’t seen a case like this in a while,” he smiled. But as the examination wore on, the look on his face faded. “If I had to guess where he was born, I’d say during a track race… about eight to ten years ago. One of the racers probably started sweating a lot and this little boy here just ended up being born out of that right there on the track. And the racer never looked back. He just kept going. He completely abandoned his little pal. His life sweat.” That wasn’t all he had to tell me. He also told me that Dr. D was very sick, and that he didn’t have a lot of time to live. Maybe two or three weeks. He had a glandular issue that was causing him not to sweat enough. How was that possible when he was made out of sweat? He would die and there’d be nothing anyone could do about it. “Take him home and make sure he goes out with a bang, ‘ay champ?” There wasn’t anything for me to say. I quivered and shook my head, tears silently falling from my eyes. “Do you need a tissue?” the vet asked.

“No,” I replied. “I’ve just got a little soap in my eye.”

I went home and vented my frustrations, using my elbows to scrub the entire bathroom floor. I built up a soapy lather of comfort where I could lay out all my frustrations and I just sat back in it. I was assured that Dr. D wouldn’t even know what was happening, and that he’d be happy right up until the end. He’d just get a little more tired. My pale beige soap skin felt strange and cold. I was losing something I was just becoming a part of.

The next day B came over and we took Dr. D to the park. In honour of our name shortening, we stuck Dr. D in between us and decided to label our group as “BDB.” Technically it was Blue Dribble Bubbles, but we pretended it stood for Birth Day Boy. And it was Dr. D’s birthday, of course. Maybe not for real, but he had a lot of them to catch up on. We ran around in the shade for hours, laughing and playing. Dr. D loved the present that Blue brought him. It was a heat lamp. I couldn’t go anywhere near it, but it made Dr. D sweat and sweat, and he just loved it. Watching him laying there, just bathing in the rays, I turned to Blue and asked him a question I’d always wanted to.

“B, where were you born?” I felt so anxious by my own question that I started to build a lather.

“The mint.”

“I guess that makes sense… It’s a happier place to be born than some others.” He had no idea what I meant, but I didn’t clarify. Eventually the sun started to go down and the bacteria began to bug Dr. D. We decided to pack it in and head back. I had to use the washroom anyways. Those public stalls they have at the park are a little too unclean for me.

For the next few days, Dr. D and I just sat around the house. I watched him go up and jump on my sis and lick her right on the face! She got so mad she could’ve spit, but I doubt Dr. D would even have noticed. He got bloated one night when he ate a special cake mom made. She makes these amazing cakes with reverse polarity magnets in them. They push any liquids away, and I eat it to help flush out my system so nothing that I’ve accidentally swallowed can break me down. Dr. D sat in front of that lamp B got him for hours a day, curled up in a ball on the rug. The rug was soaked, and I scrubbed it each night with my bare hands to keep it from smelling too bad. I knew mom and dad would get real mad if it did. Once or twice I let Dr. D come and press himself against me. It’d take time, but my body would go back to its original shape, so I didn’t mind too much. He deserved it. He was a real good dog. I had a hard time getting used to his smell but I came to accept it. One day I just stuck my hand right inside of him and let the little soap suds go all through his system. It made him feel so good, and when he shook out the bubbles and they went floating through the air, even my sister laughed. He got into my deodorant once too, and boy did he ever cough and choke on that. I had to help him out big time.

One night, after everything closed, Dr. D and Blue and I went out to the community pool. Not to swim--none of us could do that--but just to sit and watch the water.

“Do you think Dr. D is having a good time?” I asked.

“Yeah, B. He’s having a great time. The time of his life.” Suddenly, without either Blue or I noticing, Dr. D leapt off the diving board and into the water. It was the strangest splash I’d ever heard. There was nothing that could be done. We couldn’t go in after him. I sat on the edge of the water, silently waiting for him to come out.

Moments later, the entire contents of the pool picked itself up and started walking down the street, wagging its massive tail. It was Dr. D. He looked like his old self, just a lot bigger. At that moment, I was filled with all sorts of hopes and fears. Fears being that he was as huge as a pool. Hopes being that maybe with all the extra water on him, it wouldn’t matter if just a tiny little bit of his system wasn’t working. B and I had no choice but to follow him down the street.

“B,” I whispered, “You can get him to stop.”

“Oh yeah? How?” He sounded downright mad at me.

“He likes how you taste.”

B ran up in front of him and stopped. I saw him huddle over and wait for it, and he shuddered as the dog took a giant lick out of him. We’d stopped his troy, but there wasn’t a whole lot else we could do. Over time, the water sort of fell away, and eventually he was the size he’d always been. Just with a huge puddle underneath him. He was the same size, but he was much slower. After a few short steps, he couldn’t even walk. I could feel his heavy breathing and hear him panting. I had to carry him all the way home, and I felt his body start to sort of melt through mine. I knew it was time.

When we got home, I laid him in the corner of my room and sat down to have a goodbye chat. He was sleeping, but his breathing was more sporadic than before.

“Sleep, you old fool… And I’ll pray that you wake up in the morning.” I laid down in my gigantic dish on the floor and tried to find my way into a dream. It took a long while before I could even close my eyes, but eventually I fell away. When I woke up, there was a new indent in my leg and Dr. D was gone…

I felt tears coming to my eyes again. I knew he was up in Heaven somewhere, looking down on me. He probably thought I shouldn’t even sweat it. He was just that kind of dog. But I was going to cry anyways. I went downstairs. My family immediately recognized the look on my face. They knew what happened. My sister called me into her room and asked to speak with me. When we sat down on her bed, I could see her crying just as hard as I was.

“Bubbles, I know you loved that dog. And before it’s too late to tell you, I want you to know that I love you too. I’ve always loved you. But my friends think you’re creepy. They think you’re weird. So I’ve distanced myself from you, and now I regret that. When you bought me that perfume I didn’t throw it away because it came from you. Well, I did, but… not for the reason you think I did. Sarah’s Spray is for the girl who is true to her heart, and I wasn’t. I knew that by accepting a gift from you when I didn’t really accept you was wrong, so I couldn’t keep it. I had to get rid of it. I wasn’t worthy of your gift, bro. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I love you too, sis.” She collapsed into my arms and I hugged her. She started to laugh a little.

“I got a bit of you in my mouth. I’m sorry; you taste real bad! Haha.”

Later that day, B dropped by.

“Listen, I’m sorry man. But at least you only knew him a few days, right?”

“I don’t think you really know the scope of the situation.” I said to him, teeth gritted. I couldn’t believe he’d say that.

“Look, I think I know a thing or two about scope… I mean, I-I was just trying to make you feel better.”

“Well you aren’t helping!” I felt enraged. He tried to play down my relationship with Dr. D, but he wasn’t doing it for any wrong reason. Still, I felt very mad at him. But what would Dr. D think? He was all about making mistakes. Exploring, discovering and figuring out what worked and what didn’t. Blue was just trying to help out in his own way. Shortly before I sat down to look at dinner, B dropped by again with a gift.

“This is for you,” he said. “It’s a soap scrub. Now even you can give yourself the old scrub down.” I smiled at him, but couldn’t look him straight in the face.

“Are you crying?” he asked.

“No, I’ve just got a little soap in my eye. Anyways… t-thanks,” I stuttered.

“It’s no sweat.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It really isn’t.”

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Dr. D. Even now that he’s gone, after all those dirty days, he hasn’t left anything behind but good memories. I don’t remember him for leaving an ugly, sweaty imprint. I remember him for all the good times that were shared, and that I‘ll cherish forever.