Chapter Text
Our story begins on a bright Saturday. The sky is clear and crystal blue. Crisp wind carries the laughter of children and the exultation of dogs. I know it was exultation for a fact; I’ve been in a dog’s head. I was yammering right back at them and running around like a crazy ball of adorable fur. I have to hand it to Tom. The dog experience is grade A stuff.
I originally acquired a dog with the intention to sneak into a concert, except halfway there I realized a concert all on my own as a dog wouldn’t be half as much fun as bringing a friend along. And as much as I love our group, I don’t really feel like kicking back to tunes with them, shooting the breeze. Okay, I did invite Ax because THAT would have been fun but he has summarily dubbed all earth music inferior and turned me down. So the concert ended up a no go.
I kept the morph though. I mean, obviously I kept the morph. I don’t even know if we can eject these things. How would that work? Probably best not to think about it too much. But I had this morph and the dog mind is almost drug-like in its ability to brush aside anxieties and fears and paranoia. So I just started using it. You know, like kicking off your shoes and binge-Netflixing. Only as an irish setter and a whole lot more running. Girls love irish setters, you know. They are ladykillers. And that’s me in a nutshell. Well, it’s me in an irish setter but you get the gist.
My general dog haunt is this suburban neighborhood in the well-to-do part of town. It’s not a place on my way to anything, and I didn’t know anyone who lives there, so it was a perfect escape. I’d trot down the street, listen to the girls coo at me and the world of aliens would just float away. I really liked this one girl, Jessica, because she was always happy to see me, and scratched behind my ears just so, and my doggy brain hit ecstasy. Her whole family is pretty cool too. They even set out food and water for me.
Hi, I’m Marco, and that was the story of how I got adopted by a yuppy family. I’m pretty lovable, so I can’t blame them.
So back to the blue sky and yappy dogs. I had accidentally run into Jessica’s brother at the dog park in their part of town, and he’d tried to start a game of fetch. I wasn’t really on about that, but I thought I’d just get it the one time. By which I mean the irish setter brain threw me aside in its complete fixation on the stick. But it was fine, whatever. I mean, I was in the park to enjoy myself, so why not have a game?
The eighth time, the stick landed near this group of picnic tables. Seemed like a large party was hanging out, grilling up hotdogs and laughing it up. This one guy comes up very excited to see me. Squats down, starts scratching in just the right ways. And I should have been over the moon about this, except the dog in me was completely baffled. This thing in front of me - yes thing - did not smell.
Dogs’ smell is kind of a big deal. The Guster family might manage a D in doggy smelling school. Respectable for a human, I suppose. But for a dog, a bit embarrassing. So to have a human-like thing with no smell just threw the dog brain for a complete loop. Oh, he liked the scritches. But he was also confused, which was a complete buzz kill. So instead of having my happy little distraction from reality day, I was having a paranoia spike day.
Which naturally made my stomach drop into an abyss when I heard Jake’s voice and saw this big sign for the Sharing.