Today is Day #7 of of Blogdramedy’s Summer Writing Challenge: Blogshorts. The theme this year is the Dog Days of Summer. 10 days, 10 dogs (nine of which were famous dog-characters chosen by Blogdramedy as inspiration), each story 110 words.
Today’s dog is Frank, the alien/Pug from the Men In Black movies.
Dog Days of Summers
7
The mid-September woods are just beginning to shade to yellow, orange, and tinges of red. It should be inspirational, but her sketchbook remains closed. All she can see is collapsing Towers and smoke and dust and death.
Snoop is lagging behind, exploring the leafy undercarpet when she hears it. Snuffling. Rasping.
There. Cowering under a bush. It’s a… no, it’s a dog. A Pug.
Carolyn kneels and says quiet nothings. It doesn’t bolt. There’s no tag.
Naturally. Dumped, abandoned. Man’s heartlessness in fifteen forsaken pounds. Who does this? Christ. Maybe we should bring this whole civilization down.
She gathers it in, and the sobs come, the ugly dog quivering at her breast.
Stevil 
People dump out by us. I suppose they figure we live in wilderness, the dogs can fend for themselves.
They can’t.
You hear of things like this, but I just think it’s so terrible. So incredibly heartless.
I could never do this. Even though our dog is in the doghouse most of the summer due to shredding porch screens due to fear of thunderstorms, i could never abandon her.
Joe — i couldn’t either. I can’t even imagine what sort of person could do this, though I know it happens.
I interpreted this, given the context of Frank being a talking dog in New York, to mean that the pug was somehow a victim or refugee of 9/11. Maybe I’m reading the clues wrong?
HG — I had imagined the NY connection with Frank, but nothing as overt as the dog being a 9/11 orphan. I’d just imagined Carolyn finding something small and awful while on a walk and having that been “the last straw” — though in re-reading I could see how you could have gotten there.
See, now my Frank would be all over her breast. You brought class to today’s dog. I bow to your wow.
BD — you’re Frank has had it easier, though maybe not being an exile. Who knows, maybe after some TLC, this Pug could be a horn-dog, too… ;)
Nice story, Steve. Carolyn seems to be your favourite character name :)
Thanks Vishy — I’ve realized that outside of this exercise, I’ve gone to Carolyn before as a go-to name.