Neil Randall is delighted to announce that his new short
story, The Story of a Dog’s Body, has been accepted for publication by
online literary journal Misery Tourism. There’s some great stories and poems
(and some weird and wonderful artwork) on the website. If you like your
literature darker than dark then I’d strongly recommend you give it a look!
Here’s a little
taster of The Story of a Dog’s Body, the opening scenes, in fact:
This story is told from the point of view of a family dog
who wakes up one morning in the grips of a debilitating depression. It can’t
even look at the tinned dog food its owner scoops into its bowl. The thick
pieces of jellified meat, once so tantalising, appear gross and unappealing.
The mere smell of the stuff makes the dog feel nauseous, and he trudges away
and slumps down in his basket in the corner of the
kitchen.
From this lowly vantage
point, the dog observes the usual morning pandemonium as the rest of the
household wakes up – the shouts up the stairs, padding feet on the landing, the
sound of running water, the toilet flushing, the rumble of the boiling kettle,
toast popping out of a toaster.
The family itself consists of
a husband and wife and a young son. A normal, happy, functioning unit – the man
and woman go to work each day, the son goes to school. Their lives are ordered,
regimented almost, and this is perhaps (while not overtly stated) the root
cause of the dog’s malaise, how each morning is exactly the same as the morning
that preceded it, how he is expected to play out his designated role –
scampering eagerly over to each family member in turn, jumping up, licking
hands and faces, getting under feet, being lightly admonished, pushed away, occasionally
patted, stroked, hugged. But today, he has not the energy or inclination to
participate in this banal charade. He wants to do nothing more than lie
motionless in his basket.
Click on the link below to read the story in full on the
Misery Tourism website:
And if you liked that, why not check out my published works
on amazon:
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