A dog sniffed the beggar's rotting foot. It was a scruffy dog, with a scarred face. Instead of recoiling from the mutt, the beggar stretched his hand to pet it. The gesture was greeted with bared teeth, so the beggar retracted his offer of friendship. He tried another tact. He searched his voluminous pocket and pulled out a crust of bread. The crust was dry, and began to crumble in his hand.
He reached again toward the dog, this time with bread as an offering. The dog hesitated, then leaned its head forward, eyes fixed warily on the bread. The animal snatched the remnant from the beggar’s palm.
Crumbs fell to the ground. The dog finished the morsel and eyed the crumbs. Slowly he advanced, following the crumb trail and nibbling until he was at the beggar’s side. This forlorn soul, a man who long ago had forsaken any hope of kinship, foraged in his pocket and withdrew another morsel.
The creature gobbled the scrap, sat in front of the man and stared expectantly at the beggar’s pocket.
“You learn quickly, my friend,” the canine’s benefactor chuckled.
In his pocket remained a tiny bit of bread, one he had put aside for dinner. The beggar wanted the dog to like him, so he collected the fragment from his pocket. The animal wolfed it down. As he did so, the man extended a hand and pet the dog’s back.
The hand was tolerated. The dog lay by the man’s side, lowered its head to its paws, and went to sleep.
“Ah, my friend,” the man murmured.
How many years had it been since he had a friend?
From that moment the beggar’s hunt for food became more urgent. He needed to feed the dog as well as himself.
Weeks passed. The beggar combed and washed the dog’s hair. As he traveled with his new companion he noticed donations increased. People stopped by his little pile of possessions to gaze at the dog.
“That dog is so cute,” one child said, and the parent threw down a quarter.
“Mommy, can I pet him?” another entreated.
“No dear, that’s not safe.”
Never looking at the beggar, the parent threw fifty cents on the pavement.
“Now the dog will have something to eat,” the mother comforted her child.
The beggar relocated his station frequently. Remaining too long in one spot would attract attention, and ire.
One day he moved to the alley behind a steakhouse. The trashcan there was brimming with discarded meat. For days the beggar and the dog ate well. On the fourth day, a worker wearing an apron approached. The beggar prepared to flee.
The worker called to the retreating figure, “Wait. I want to help.” He held in his hand a small, grease-stained bag
The beggar inched closer. The restaurant worker placed the greasy bag on the concrete, then retreated to the alley entrance.
Dog and beggar investigated the contents of the bag. Steak bits. Fries. Bread.
“Don’t worry,” the worker from his position at the end of the alley reassured. “Eat. I told the owner about the dog and he said it would be OK to bring out some food for the animal.”
After that, the beggar and the dog didn’t have to search for food. They were assured a meal, every evening.
The beggar forgot his rule about moving on. This place was safe. He was welcome.
When it rained the man covered the two of them with a tarp. When it snowed the two shared body warmth, and doubled the protection of the tarp. In good weather the two ventured into the street to stretch their legs.
The dog loved the park. The beggar increasingly had trouble walking because his foot had never healed. The strange purple hue was in fact traveling toward his leg.
It was on one of these excursions that the two friends ran into a stout woman who was walking a poodle. She stopped and addressed the beggar.
“What are you doing with that dog?” she demanded.
The beggar said nothing and hurried past her to his alley, where his station waited. By now the station had become quite elaborate. He’d converted a crate into a table. He had arranged planks so that his bedding would be elevated, protected from pooling water during rainstorms.
The poodle woman followed them, and stared into the alley.
She stood there for several minutes but said nothing and didn’t advance.
The next day, while he was sleeping, the dog growled. Then it crouched and barked fiercely. The beggar woke to find two uniformed men lassoing the dog.
“Stop!” He leapt to his feet and implored the men. “That’s my dog.”
One of the uniformed men turned to him and warned, “Stay back, unless you want to be charged with animal neglect. We don’t put up with that in this town.”
The beggar shrank into a small huddle.
His dog was whining and struggling against the harness that had been placed around his body and his mouth.
The uniformed men bundled the restrained animal into their van. In an instant, the van was gone.
The beggar slowly uncurled his body. He had strained his diseased foot by leaping to the dog’s defense. The wrapping around his ulcers was stained with an orange fluid, and blood.
The man regarded his home, his rumpled bedding. His glance lingered briefly on the dog’s food bowl. He wept.
That evening a restaurant worker entered the alley with a bag of food, as usual.
“Where’s the dog?” he asked in surprise. The dog was never far from the beggar’s side.
“They took him. Today. They came with a van, and they took him.”
The worker left the food.
The next day, at dinner time, nobody appeared in the alley entrance.
A day passed. The beggar was hungry. He found few scraps near the trash because the restaurant had begun to keep the bin tightly wrapped to comply with new regulations.
Darkness fell. The aroma of scorched steak permeated the alley.
No worker, no food, again.
Next morning the beggar gathered his belongings. He knew the pattern. Soon they would call the police. Best to keep moving. He walked unsteadily on the rotting foot. He wondered if anyone could smell what he smelled when he leaned over to wrap it.
Time passed. He was feverish. The leg throbbed. He no longer tried to dress his open wounds. He managed to get around by leaning heavily on a stick. He'd stopped thinking about food, but was consumed with one desire: return home, to the alley where he had lived with his dog.
He set up his station in the alley, and laid his head on a pair of rolled up pants.
The howling began during the steakhouse lunch service.
“You hear that?” The sous-chef turned to the pantry chef.
The pantry chef smiled.
“The dog!” They said in unison.
The sous-chef collected scraps of meat, stuffed them in a bag, and hurried out the door.
The dog was hovering over the prone beggar. The animal snarled as the chef approached.
“It’s me. Remember me?” he coaxed softly and reached toward the dog.
The animal leapt forward and grabbed the man’s hand in a vice-like bite. When the chef pulled away blood was gushing from his arm.
He ran back into the restaurant and called the police.
“There's a vicious dog in the alley. He might have killed a beggar already.”
The dog was seized by Animal Control, and euthanized.
An autopsy performed on the beggar revealed he died of sepsis. His body was requisitioned by a teaching institute, where it was used as an instruction cadaver.
People read about the brave sous-chef, the vicious dog. They came from afar to gawk at the alley. Many of them stayed for lunch.
In the end, the beggar and the dog were good for business.
Written in response to Inkwell fiction prompt #88: Hunger
Image: I made the picture from these public domain elements
Armarpreet Singh: Dog on Pixabay
Myriams-photos: Beggar on Pixabay
Lenski: Brick Wall Pixabay
I used a Lunapic filter to finish it off
Wow...
I say I come up with grim stories that put a horrible mirror for us humans to accept the darkest elements of our nature. But, I'm glad not to be alone in those mental pits.
The ending punched me in the gut, as it should....
Thank you, and thank you for reading it.🌹
It's hard to turn away, but we have to. We have to find joy in life, but always for me there is an undercurrent, an awareness. I guess we carry the light and the dark with us all the time.
Have a bright, sunny day today--no matter the weather :)
A gripping story, but dark. But then there is something dark in the way we can show empathy and compassion for some species but tolerate abominable cruelty to others, including our own.
There is a formula for touching the audience's heartstrings in popular media. Put a dog in there. You can kill 20 people, but don't kill the dog.
Funny. I don't see the story as dark. I see it as real. What does that say about me?
Its so sad the warm companionship between man and creature was torn apart, but a Will greater than their own was at work. This Will made it possible for certain people to profit off the unfortunate end of both. Thanks for this excellent story.
Thank you for reading my story, @aloysiusmbaba. I appreciate your insight.
It does seem that we have to resist all the time those forces that do harm. I guess everyday we have to open our eyes and try to truly see those around us, even those who seem to be invisible.
Hope you have the most wonderful weekend.
Hello, @agmoore! I was hooked reading this story. Life often makes homeless ones befriend genuine fellows to endure the rudeness that being out there represents. Good story.
You are very kind @gabmr. Sometimes a story just wants to be told. In this case I had the story but couldn't get it started. I think the beginning is quite awkward, but I did want to tell the story of this man and his dog. So I persisted.
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment.
To be honest, the ending is such a knockout that it took me a full hour to collect myself before I felt settled enough to comment on your hard-hitting tragedy. You really caught me off guard, and only after thinking about it for a while did I realize that the ending was foreshadowed from the very beginning. I should have been more aware of your hidden clues: the end was in the last morsel of bread, it was in the poodle's eyes, and it was in the septic foot.
Loads of people are such hypocrites; they will pontificate about the dangers of allowing a poor homeless person to keep a pet just before they go home to their steak dinner while ignoring the beggar on their path.
Your story commands with its phenomenal eloquence and insight.
Hello dear @itsostylish💐,
Thank you for that generous critique. Every now and then I have to write something...call it catharsis... and that's what happened here. I really appreciate that you see the connection between the beginning and the end. It was always about the end, and then creating a logical path to that conclusion (kind of like the beggar's breadcrumbs, as you note).
People love happy endings, but they may not always get one in my stories. There was plenty of kindness there, but not enough to save the beggar and the dog.
I deliberately did not name these characters, because they represented more than themselves. I'm really happy this worked for you, as a reader. Thanks so much for reading through and commenting.
Oh @agmoore, my heart is torn asunder. I wish there was more love, more abundance (distributed so it benefits those who need it), more understanding and caring in this world. This is a powerful story.
Thank you very much, @jayna.This was one of those cases where what I wanted to say became more important than the way I said it. I struggled to place the scene and create the character seamlessly. It wasn't an entirely successful struggle, and yet I wanted to get to the end, to make my point. So I pressed on. Your opinion that the story is 'powerful' tells me that at least for you I made the right decision. It certainly felt good to get this out and say what I said.
I very much appreciate your reading and commenting. So much on your plate these days, and yet you find time to give me feedback. Thank you 🌷
Such a sad ending story about the friendship of the faithful dog and the beggar. Until the end I was hoping for a better outcome but life can be really so hard at times. 😭
Thanks for sharing though @agmoore.
It is a sad ending, and I'm sorry to upset you, @gen-quimba. In my country (and in many parts of the world, I believe) a homeless person falls off the radar. It's a terrible thing that happens to many people, but solutions are elusive, so people who have homes often look away. I wanted us to look at one person. Unfortunately, dogs seem to get more sympathy than people, so I put the dog in there.
It is also true in my country that the fate of homeless people, after death, is often in a medical school. Nobody claims the body so the medical schools use them. It's a terrible fact, one most of us don't like to think about, but in my story I ask people to look.
Meanwhile, here is a picture of a sweet lamb. A much more lovely image for your Sunday🌷
Have a wonderful day.
You are always so nice @agmoore, thanks a lot, also for your explanation! 😍
Oh my goodness. My heart 🥺 @agmoore. You captured so much of the intensity of this tragic story with the simplicity of your select words. How sad that humanity has fallen so far... That we live in a world where a dog's life is valued above that of a human being. My heart was aching for the beggar as I read this. He has almost nothing, yet he sacrifices what little comfort and food that he has, and struggles through the hardship of his own pain, to look after the dog; his only value to society being as caretaker for an abandoned animal. His own hunger to have his real needs of love and care met must be immense. Terribly sad 😭😭😭Your writing soars... And it inspires me!!! 💗💗💗
You are so very kind, my dear friend @samsmith1971. I kept trying to smooth it over, to make the first part more graceful. It just wouldn't happen. So I went with it. That ending was written before a word was on the page. I needed to get the ending out. As a matter of fact, when I first wrote it the dog was shot, but I toned that down out of respect for Inkwell culture.
Thank you very much for your sensitive reading of my story 🌟✨🌹
This is great
How so?