TigologyVerse.com

New series: Scratch Fiction — short pieces built from prompts, contests, and whatever’s rattling around. This first entry was written for 1Picture1000Words, a $1,000 contest built around a single photo: a dog standing guard over a backyard pool.

It has been four years since I was imprisoned in this body. In my time in this realm I have studied the habits of many lesser creatures, but none so absurd as the ones the humans call dogs. While this form is not what I imagined for my sentence, I will not pretend to be too disgruntled; even diminished, this shape is larger than the most feared beast beyond the compound wall. The gods have banished me into something formidable for combat. I do not know which of my crimes against creation determined this sentence. I have taught mortals words that unraveled their minds among other heinous crimes. So when the tribunal grew tired of me, they did not kill me as I had anticipated. “Death,” they said, “was a luxury I was no longer entitled to.” Instead they destroyed my body and sent my consciousness flying across the cosmos until I awoke here, with no instruction for the terms of my return, only the promise of redemption once I had earned it.

For four years after my reincarnation I have lived as a guard dog of this domain. The Human who rules this domicile of stone and hardened sand chose me and brought me here to fulfill my role as a dog to guard his glittering domicile of ivory and zima blue tile. Even the fiercest predators understand my silhouette and thus I do not blame the Master for choosing me well as I would have made the same choice given his position.

Each dawn I am commanded to patrol the compound. I cross the flagstones, past the black woven sectional where I am permitted to rest, past the stone pillar, out along the fence that rings the pool like a fortress. For years I believed my sentence would be easy, and I would return to the heavens for enduring this task. I would sit upon the lounge chairs and stare at the water through the white iron bars and think: this is a kingdom worth guarding. I was proud as I had guarded many similar fortresses in my previous life. I was once again a beast admired and feared which surprised me as I had assumed my sentence would be almost painful. Perhaps that was the joke of the gods: that mercy would arrive wearing fur, teeth, and the demand for obedience.

How foolish I was.

It began as a cry from the window of the pool-house tower. A high-pitched yelp that was not the Master’s booming voice. These shouts were softer, higher, cracked like something had shattered. I told myself it was the wind finding a gap in the stone. I told myself many things because a guardian does not question the walls he is sworn to, nor the will of the Master.

Then I saw her.

She crossed the courtyard before the Master woke, moving quick, close to the walls, eyes down. She wore a long-sleeved tunic, and when the fabric caught on the weaving of her arm, I saw what she was willing to endure such heat to conceal. Bruises in the shape of fingers and fists.

I have seen this violence before. In my true form, violence was a language I was fluent in. I dealt in ruin like my master deals in influence. But this was different. This was brutal and endless cruelty with no audience but the walls and, apparently, me. That night I heard the Master’s voice rise in the tower. The sound of a closed-fisted strike against bone and flesh. Her cry cut short as though a hand had found her throat, and I understood why I had been brought to this place.

I was not brought here to keep intruders out.

I was brought here to keep her in.

The realization sat with me through a long patrol. I walked the perimeter I had walked a thousand times, past the blue lounge chairs where she sometimes sat alone when the Master traveled, past the low table with the pale stone map set beneath its glass, a map of some mountain range she has surely never been permitted to see. At last I understood the true shape of my punishment. The gods had made me complicit in the torment of this young girl. Every hour I sat silent was an hour I chose the cage of my own making over her safety. This, then, was the impossible choice. Do I remain the Master’s beast and be freed when my sentence lapses, or do I forfeit my position and violate the Master’s will to aid in her escape from this place? A god would call it no choice at all. A dog, I am learning, would do the same. Right?

I stopped at the water’s edge, where the pool mirrors the pergola, this borrowed body with its heavy jaw and thoughtless eyes. I do not know what a god is meant to do with a conscience, though four years spent wearing a guardian’s flesh has taught me that maybe there are things in this realm more valuable to protect than riches or prestige.

For three nights I watched and waited. I learned when the Master drank until his steps softened. I learned when the cameras on the far wall looked away to reboot. I learned that the girl kept a small bundle beneath the loose tile beside the pool-house stair with a purse and a weapon in tow. She had prepared herself long ago for her escape, and tonight was the night she would flee the Master’s grasp.

She saw me waiting by the gate.

She froze and reached for her bundle.

Behind her, from the tower, the Master’s voice began to rise, screaming blood and thunder. I could run toward him and end his reign with one bite, but the loyal dog I had become knew better. So I did not growl. I pushed the gate with my shoulder, slow enough that its hinges would not scream, granting passage. I could not go with her, but I could at least buy her some time. I cannot speak her tongue. I cannot hope to believe the gods will not extend my punishment for perishing if the Master were to find out his dog was plotting against him.

But I can be at the gate when she runs.

I can defend her from his fury.

I will free this girl from this hellish place so that she may be safe and perhaps, free myself from the shackles of my past as well. The pool still glittered. The tower still held its windows shut. The Master’s shoes still struck the stone with the same confident rhythm. Yet every sound now arranged itself around escape. The click of the latch, the path between the tower door and the side gate, even the gardener’s cart, left crooked beside the hedges, became a map in my mind. The Master stirs in his crypt, angered by the flight of his victim, for it will be his last. For as long as I am here in this form, the only prisoner in this realm will be me and that beast.

Originally written as an entry for 1Picture1000Words (quarter–mile.com), a photo-prompt writing contest. Entered under the contest’s non-exclusive license, so full rights stay with the author.