WOBBLY

DAMIAN IS THIS guy who used to rent out a small section of the back yard. He built a shed out there in the corner out of wood and stuff he found on the side of the street. It was a good shed I gotta say, it had a big long extension lead that ran from the house all the way down the yard to his cabin. I liked Damian.

Anyways, Damian had this dog named Wobbly, on account of the dog wobbling around everywhere; he had a bit of a gammy leg and when I moved in Wobbly and I got on just fine. He had real rough fur, like a WELCOME doormat, and a little moustache type thing. I think he was some kind of stag hound.

So one morning I took wobbly down to the park, or rather, he took me. As soon as you picked up his lead off the wall he was there in front of you waiting with his chin up in the sky. So, you’d just hitch up the lead and away you both went.

Wobbly used to like sniffing everything on the way to the park and pissing everywhere. I liked Wobbly a lot. He didn’t really have much interest in the other dogs at the park but he loved hiding in the bushes and looking for something or other – probably rats or mice. I dunno. Only Wobbly knew the answer to that one.

After the park I walked up to the shops and that to buy some eggs and I tied Wobbles' (as I liked to call him) lead to a post and entered the store. There was a tall skinny man dressed all in black at the exit to the store surrounded by two men in fluro jackets who screamed “I’M FIFTY YEARS OLD! I HAVEN’T STOLEN ANYTHING IN MY LIFE!!! HERE!!! YA WANNA LOOK!!!” and he shoved a black walking basket in their general direction with lid flipped open.

All the other people in the store just pretended like it wasn’t happening and as the two men in fluro jackets walked off back into the store the man in black yelled louder and louder at them.

Anyways, I got my eggs and walked out to fetch Wobbles and he was gone. Lead and all! Gone. Just VANISHED. There was no trace of him. I ran around the shopping lot looking for him but he was outta there. So, I ran back to the park, checked the bushes (found a winning lotto ticket – two bucks, score) but no trace of Wobbles. I ran up to the nearest phone booth up on the High Street and there in front of me was a black phone hanging vertical to the ground, perfectly in line with the door to the booth and inside was little plastic seat and next to the big black phone contraption was a little silver shelf with an empty bottle of white wine. The sign at the top of the booth said WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOU CONNECT.

I couldn’t get through to Damian to see if Wobbles somehow made it home and as I walked up the street I saw a podiatrist clinic with a seat on the footpath that had a sign which read FOR PODIATRIST CUSTOMERS ONLY and it read very tersely. Then I saw a little bag on the ground with skulls all over it, two wire shopping trolleys with one that had two empty white platic cups crinkled up insdie, a big red sign with AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP OF CAPITAL!!! with a little picture of the monopoly man with a noose around his neck and then still further underneath him it read in even angrier letters DEMAND NOTHING! TAKE EVERYTHING! And beside that was a bin with another sign in cursive writing that read City of Darebin – The Place to Live.

It was all a little too much and then I saw the man dressed in black again. He was yelling at a lady whose partner was standing beside her. When I approached the man in black just kind of slinked off.

“Oh I saw that guy at the shops yelling at people too” I said,

“He called me a M*****F******!” said the lady.

The man beside her yelled out to the man in black “WHAT! WELL COME BACK HERE THEN!” But as I looked down the path the man in black turned around and kept walking off down the street.

“I think he’s sick” I said to the two,

“Yeah, but that’s no excuse.” said the man.

“Yeah, just the reason I 'spose. That stuff'll really get ya blood boiling; I’m sorry you guys had to go through that.” I replied.

“Whelp” the man kinda just calmed straight down and turned to the lady and said “shall we keep going?” and she just replied simply and plainly “yeah.”

“Have you seen a black scruffy dog walk past this way?” I quickly asked them.

“Sorry, no.” they both replied.

Anyways, I started walking home to tell Damian about Wobbles and how he ran off and I was trying to figure out a way to break it to him and figure out a strategy to find the blessed little devil but as soon as I unhitched the gate and walked into the backyard Wobbles just started wagging his tail and looking at me from his throne; which was a decrepit old couch with foam hanging out everywhere. His lead was just dangling off to the side.

I liked Wobbles a lot. I wonder what he's up to right now.