Fragile

Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. — G. Randolf

Artwork by Toni Verkruysse

Nice clean waiting room; flat screen TV, doughnuts, gourmet coffee (DQ, not Starbucks). There’s a cute puppy bouncing around, the type that’s happy to meet any living creature. I decide it’s a greeting dog. Too young to have been trained, probably he’s doing it by instinct. An endearing little pooch; even though there are half a dozen other people in the room, he seems to like me the most.

After playing with him, I eat a couple of biscuits from the jar. The receptionist tells me the dog and the biscuits belong together.

Huh?

Milkbone, she says, dog biscuit. Well, that explains the sudden reversal in the damn mutt’s demeanor.

*****A sketch of this story was published in Paragraph Planet on September 1, 2024.*****