Hi all,
here’s a new piece of writing prompt fiction for you and it’s topical. Who knew I could write topical fiction, eh? You can find the prompts below the piece. Enjoy!
Rex growled and Tom put the plate on the ground. Rex inspected it. He said, ‘There’s only one piece left.’ He ate it.
‘That was a big piece,’ said Bono.
Rex flicked his pink tongue around his snout, then lay down and closed his eyes. Bono gave a half-hearted whine and let his brown and white body fall, spine against the base of the couch.
The food was just this side of rotten, Tom complained but Bono and Rex liked it. Flavoursome. Tom’s food had used to always be bland. Any smell it might have dulled further by the refrigerator. But since the lockdown he’d been eating with them. Sharing the scraps they’d normally get for themselves. Rex didn’t like it.
Bono flicked an eye to Rex, gave a timid shake of his tail to show he wasn’t thinking about becoming top dog. That was Rex. Bono stood and shook himself at the patio door until Tom roused himself to let the dog out. Tom was thinner. His polo shirt hung from his shoulders instead of stretching over his belly. In the garden Bono found a spot that was relatively free from crap and did his business. From everywhere came the scent of Rex’s business. Reminders of who was boss. Bono sniffed around for a while but there was nothing to do. No cars, no people. Just a gusty wind that told him things weren’t better anywhere else. This was the new normal. They were in deep trouble. Bad time to be the lowest dog on the totem pole.
He came back in and sat listening to Rex’s breathing. Rex was getting angry. He was bored and hungry and that made him hateful. The room slowly darkened. Tom’s belly growled. Rex growled back.
Tom stood. This was Bono’s chance. The couch had been gifted to him: he sprang onto it. His muscles quivered in excitement. When Tom came back he could sit on the floor. Rex was watching carefully. Rex is a Good Boy, he thought and wagged his tail. He didn’t want to be top dog, he just didn’t want to be bottom dog. Tom came back. Started eating little flakes of pulped corn that he usually ate with milk. He hadn’t noticed that Bono was on the couch. Bono pushed his snout towards the plate. Tom pushed it away. Bono had to tell himself that that wasn’t the way things were going down any more. He managed to lick a few of the sweetish flakes off the plate. Tom pushed him away. ‘Hey!’ Habit told Bono not to do it again. But he had to. He darted forward, managed to knock the plate over. Tom went down on his knees after them, scrabbling to get as many as he could before the dogs ate them.
Rex was making his own calculations. Bono was happy. He’d gotten the couch and had Tom eating off the floor. It was pretty obvious who the bottom dog was. Rex didn’t care about the tasteless flakes. He was looking at Tom, his behind in the air. Thinner than it had been but still…. A long pink tongue rolled slowly out of his mouth. Bono waited. Rex gave him a look. They would have to do this together. Hunting. Real dog stuff. Bad time to be the lowest dog on the totem pole. Rex pounced. When Tom tried to get away so did Bono.
Afterwards he slept on the floor. He was back to being the lowest dog on the totem pole. He looked over. Saw Rex watching him.
The prompts were the random title ‘Perpetual Longing’ and the following five words together with the picture of a man and his two best friends at the top of this page.
gifted
rotten
deep
gusty
hateful
