“On the next to the last episode of Raining Cats & Dogs, Fido was put down and died along with his midget friend. Despite being given the death penalty by a corrupt pug, who was also the head of PETA, Fido died in honor and in glorious combat, defying the authority of man.
By befriending and parenting the midget cat, Fido redeemed his life of sin and proved others wrong who suggested he was incapable of one good deed.
Of course, this didn’t change the fact that he was just another dead dog to animal control.
And come to think of it, no one really knew about the good deed he did.
Oh well, at least he wasn’t run over in traffic like Sir Mikhail.
Meanwhile, Bessie and the other dogmatic authorities are giving up on the search and declaring Pal Joey, the mutant cat-dog hybrid, as Fido’s official killer.
However, Diamond, Alex and Fido still have yet to make peace with their contemptible father’s death.
Confused? If so, it’s too late because this is the final chapter of Raining Cats & Dogs.”
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 1
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 2
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 3
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 4
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 5
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 6
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 7
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 8
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 9
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 10
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 11
Chapter 5: Sins of the Father
News of Fido’s death continued to be in mystery. Most dogs projected their own feelings of Fido onto a believable death scenario. Some dogs believed the Pal Joey theory, and thought it was a fitting conclusion that a dog so hateful toward cats would be murdered by his own illegitimate child. Others thought he died of old age and loneliness, a victim of the solitary lifestyle he stubbornly created.
Diamond’s paranoia only grew more intense and unbearable, even as stories of his alleged patricide begin to die down. What’s worse, the jittery dog thought, than your friends accepting the fact that you committed murder? Diamond could think of nothing to say that would clear his name and every time he would defend himself he would arouse more suspicion in his listeners. He provided no evidence of his innocence. Instead, he would persecute and physically pummel his opposition into accepting his peacefulness.
As the months passed and people began to accept his murderous streak and accept the fact that he couldn’t accept the stigma, he began to lose what remaining rational he had. He later embarked on a ruthless campaign in his home territory to kill all newborn dogs. After successfully killing two puppies, his human overlord separated him from the rest of the dogs, locking him into a fence. Surrounded four times by an angry and unforgiving fence, Diamond had nothing better to do than boil over in hatred. Dogs who would pass by his fence would overhear him barking to himself nonsense about killing and devouring his own father and then bringing him back from the dead, in an effort to show everyone his “undeniable innocence.”
Only his mother Gunda was brave enough to enter this fortress of solitude. The last time Gunda spoke with Diamond she was surprised over how demented he had become in a short period of time.
“My son. What has happened to you?”
Diamond frowned for a moment before returning to a villainous gaze. His fur was ruffled and withering. His jaw foamed and his ears were crumpled up like leaves. “What happened to me? Indeed! I am the evident demonstration as to what happens when an innocent dog is condemned by others. I would have sooner been put to death than to suffer the suspicious thoughts of others. Mother, I can hear them constantly. I have a new ability to perceive the thoughts and hearts of others. I am an empath. I hear the thoughts that exist behind every empty look, every grimace. They hate me. They think I should die for the sin I have committed against my dead father. Justice mocks me. A cat dog illegitimate son killed my father! A contrived scenario that only takes away attention from the real culprit, the jealous son, the bitter son, the bad son who envied his father’s good fortune.”
“What good fortune?” Gunda asked in disgust. “You think your father had good fortune? You think you slowly turning into your father is my pride and joy? Self-loathing doesn’t excuse your behavior. Nobody hates you because you murdered your father. They hate you because you act like your father!”
“You see! I knew you were going to say that! How did I know? You and this community are trying to force me to become my father against my will! And you expect me to cower and to grovel at your feet and so generously take this label so I can bring you comfort? Are you comforted by my father’s wretchedness? Does his filthy smell suit you?”
“There you go again! Rambling on in lunacy, rationalizing away your responsibility.”
Gunda shook her head and turned away from the angry dog.
“Rationalizing? Sounds like a human word to me. Fido, he was always the friends of humans, wasn’t he? He was always the favorite, always the hero, always the planner and the sage—”
“What are you talking about, you mad dog? Do you ever listen to yourself? Do you ever wonder why you have surrounded yourself with these walls?”
“They did it to me. The humans. At the order of my brothers and sisters. And all the hands of Fido, my late parent, who mocks me even in death…”
“No, you did it to yourself. Your failure is my failure. I am the mother of failure,” Gunda cried.
Diamond turned away and continued to fidget, mumbling to himself and biting his own tail.
“Just tell me. Once and for all,” she said with an injurious stare. “Did you do it?”
“What?” Diamond turned his face to her, keeping his distance.
“Just answer your own fur and blood. Did you kill him? Any good dog knows he deserved to die. You had every reason to end his miserable life. But you must confess what you have done.” Gunda’s face was stretched and growling.
“You ungrateful bitch! You foul-smelling womb of stench! Does my own fur and blood mean nothing to you?”
“My own blood? I don’t know who you are,” Gunda sourly retorted. “My only wish is that you could be true. That you be man’s best friend again and confess your sins.”
As Gunda turned her back, Diamond fuzzed up into an aggressive stance. Gunda saw his ferocious barking and cowered. She tried to escape the fenced area but Diamond blocked her exit, peering into her languid eyes.
She stood her ground, still averting her eyes, and spoke with calm. “Well? What are you going to do? I’m your mother.”
“You are not my fur and blood,” said Diamond in a demented whisper. “You are a foreign creature, nothing but a womb to me. An ugly batch of blood, mucus and bodily secretions with a dog’s face.”
Diamond paced around Gunda and snapped at the back of her neck. Gunda tried to flee but Diamond surrounded her, stealthily using the fence to trap her in place. Gunda turned around, fearing a devastating blow to the face.
“I’m not going to hit you…” Before Gunda could howl in surprise, Diamond had humped her from behind and was crashing his bulb into her delicates. Gunda whined and barked in defense, to others, and to her own ill-begotten, but no one would hear of it.
Diamond even taunted her during the rape. “Where is your human master now? Where are your pups that you love so much? Where is your Fido now?” Diamond savagely defiled the very womb he crawled from, leaving Gunda a heap of blood, urine and tears.
Diamond found a comfortable patch of grass and lay down. Through half of his closed snout he whispered a warning. “Get out of here. Or I’ll kill you.” When his mother whined, he repeated his warning with a menacing growl. It took her entire strength to pick herself up and crawl back to safer plains.
*
Alex encountered Ivory who appeared characteristically forlorn, lying flat on the floor, uninterested in his meal. “Dear brother,” she said softly. “Why has your face sunk to the floor? Is it your late father?”
Ivory lifted his head so he could turn it away in denial. “My father? The only thing that saddens me about my father is how I, the righteous one, have squandered my youth and become less of a dog than he. Less of a dog than half a brute. How can I fathom the fact that Fido proved to be a greater dog than I? He maintained dominance over his territory. He knew many females and produced many offspring, and with the exception of yours truly, a litter destined to achieve great things. Meanwhile, I waste away in my own corpulence. My knowledge has amounted to nothing. My life experience consists of nothing but shit and pontification. If I were to die now, no one would hear of it. It wouldn’t cause the slightest stir in the smallest community.”
Alex licked Ivory’s shaky ears. “Brother,” Alex lamented, shaking her head. “Do you think a dog’s value is determined by his harem? Or by his territory? Or by how many fights he survives? I have but one family and but one human owner. My master is the only sentient being that will ever remember me. You know what my final collected works will consist of? Licking a friendly face…chewing on slippers…begging for table scraps. How can the human world ever give proper value to our accomplishments?”
Ivory stood up and shook himself clean. He began lazily pacing, enjoying his sister’s presence even while feeling challenged. “Are you aware that mankind, a portion of mankind, our so-called best friend, actually devours dog in other parts of our world? One of my intellectual acquaintances showed me evidence of this treachery. The land called China. Human beings devour everything from full grown dog to pregnant dogs to unborn dog fetuses. So am I to conclude that human beings are only man’s best friend in this land, but in the next world, they are our mortal enemies? How does one comprehend such madness? What if I had been born in this ‘China’ and was eaten on my fourth birthday? What if I learned to speak the human being’s language and communicated our intellectual comprehension through an exchange of language? Would we continue to be subjugated? Or would the humans then see us as a threat to their dominance? Indeed, is friendship only determined by compliance and weakness? We befriend what cannot kill us.”
“There you go again,” Alex dismissed. “Chasing your own tail. Let me ask, does it please you to ask all of these questions? You always do this and find yourself in a dead end. Have you ever asked yourself what answers would really make you happy? Does it soothe you to know that human beings make mistakes? Does it comfort you to know that bad dogs like your father sometimes excel in life while good dogs like you ramble on to no particular audience?”
Her questions only whipped Ivory into a belly roll of pathos. “You know what comforts me?” she continued. “To ponder the slight possibility that our father accomplished something good before his time. That he was capable of a good act. An act not about dominance or about ambition. But an act of love. I do appreciate that about human beings, that they love fiercely. They love us if we love them. It doesn’t matter what we do. It doesn’t matter how much pain they are in. Humans attack other humans. They suffer and cause suffering. But they always find time to love…if not each other than us. They showed us what love is, and for that, I credit them with being a superior species. If not for the love of man, how much unhappier would we be?”
“What if man’s love were a fallacy? What if instead of loving us, He was simply comforting himself? He uses the dog as a living blanket, replacing his mother’s touch with furry transference.”
“Transference? Ah…let me guess, a human word?” Alex asked.
“Yes. Another word my intellectual acquaintances brought to my attention.”
“Are they your friends?”
“No…we don’t quite understand the concept of friendship. We refer to our group as a studentship of collective minds.”
“I see. Perhaps your group would benefit from using the title of “friend”, even if it’s just a pretense.”
“I suppose we could conduct an experiment of sorts and see the benefits that arise from using such a queer word.”
“All right then,” Alex winked.
“Have you heard from Diamond and his brethren?”
“Not much.”
“I suppose he’s busy with his communal and his responsibilities.”
Alex laughed. “Do you really think Diamond is a great dog? He’s gone mad, brother. He chews on his own flesh and rapes every dog that comes near. His sisters, his mother even his male cousins. His only friend Mikhail killed himself three months ago. He threw himself out in front of the falling rocks. His only reason for living stopped living. Not to be making comparisons, but I worry that all of your great thinking will someday lead you to the same path.”
“Is it better to never think at all and be forgotten as a dumb mutt?”
“It’s better to use your thinking productively. Use your wit and your memory to guide you somewhere, not to get lost in a cavern. But what do I know? I’m nothing but a worn out mother and prattling sister.”
“No…” Ivory said weakly. “You mean so much more than that.”
Alex rubbed her head against his. “Don’t stop dreaming, brother. Not if it keeps you alive.”
“How do you do it?” Ivory asked Alex, who had already left his presence and started the long journey back home. “How did you forgive your father? Perhaps knowing such will be of…curiosity to my intellectual…friends.”
“I forgive everyone. Sometimes my pups ask me the same question. How can I forgive my master when she scolds me? How can I forgive my father who abandoned us? How can I forgive someone like Tashi knowing what he is doing to those pups and kittens…” She shuddered. “I don’t know why. I see the best in others. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that separates us from man. To err is human, to forgive, canine.”
Ivory said nothing as Alex bowed to him and continued the long walk home. He pondered that night, many unanswerable questions that challenged the notion of his individual dogentity. He remained in the same spot, sleeping in it, and walking only a slight distance to defecate. He examined his feces and wondered what part of him he left behind in that wreaking pile. He wondered if he was consistently losing portions of himself with every piss and shit he took, how much longer before he became an entirely new dog with a new personality?
It began to rain but he hardly noticed. Nothing but a wet dog he became and he pondered that as well. His fur, once so bushy and thick, was now reduced to a soaked towel of stench. How could he forgive his father for achieving so many great things, while he was doomed to remain a dreamer—no, not a dreamer but a worrier? Dreamers at least contemplate achieving great things. He would only worry himself into an intellectual oblivion. There, he figured, his intellectual acquaintances would study him, at least trying to make some sense of his paradogmatic life. As he lay in the mud, the rain becoming stronger and pummeling his sad little snout, he saw what Alex had been talking about: he saw that his father was capable of changing and doing one good deed. The ramifications of that perturbed him too, for he doubted he was capable of change. He was barely capable of conversing with the other intellectual dogs, they having more clout because of their territory, females and populated brethren. He barely had a sister and his only half-brother would probably rape him if he dared to trespass.
Realizing that he had nothing but a coat of wet dog fur to offer, Ivory started to crawl forward following his sister. Perhaps in his rabid mind he hoped that he could ingratiate himself into her circle of friends, family and human masters. Perhaps they would show him this “love” he so often heard about.
He never made it to Alex’s luxurious quarters. The dog collapsed near a random house located somewhere westward. He may have died had he not sniffed the distinctive smell of meat pie. It was enough to bring this wet whiny thing to his feet and over to the left over scraps by the front door. He saw the front door and assumed that the human master might overhear his scratching and chewing. One last good meal was worth it, he concluded.
As he finished the last bread crumb, sure enough he heard ominous footsteps coming from inside the small house. He licked his mouth clean and looked up. There, stood a little frail woman of advanced years. She squinted as she looked down at him, carefully holding her shotgun and aiming it at Ivory’s begging eyes.
“I told you damn cats to stay away from my home,” the old woman gurgled in anger. She pumped the rifle and prepared to decorate her porch with a fresh new layer of cat paint. However, upon hearing Ivory’s whine she became startled. “Oh my…” she said, as she squinted carefully and saw the distinguishable face of a wet dog. She lowered her gun and put it to the side.
“Well…I’ll be damned,” she said to herself in confusion. “You’re just a little doggie. Poor wet, little thing. You must be freezing to death out here.”
The little old lady opened the front door behind her and then laid her lands on Ivory’s shivering body. Ivory whined repeatedly, his tears disappearing into his head fur’s dripping rainwater. She took him inside and wrapped him in a kitchen towel. She sensed his loneliness and boredom…probably an unwanted mutt with no surviving family and not too many years of life left. Not much reason to get up in the morning except a hardy meal.
“You hungry boy? You want a meat pie?” she asked excitedly. In answer, the begging dog licked his lips. The woman kept Ivory wrapped up like a newborn baby of her own and carefully walked over to her lounge chair. She sat down next to a fireplace and dried the weeping dog with her papery, bony hands. “There, there,” she cooed peacefully. Ivory wept profusely as she hugged him and whispered a comforting foreign language.
“There, there. Everything’s going to be okay, little pup.”
Raining Cats and Dogs has finally ended. Applause. This novella will soon be converted into e-book format with a few extra perks. Raining Cats and Dogs is a registered copyright (R) 2011 of The Late Mitchell Warren. Raining Cats and Dogs is a dog murder mystery very loosely based on The Brothers Karamazov and in the style of Animal Farm. But it’s done with an all dog-cast. No animals were harmed in the making of this dog soap opera. Er, except the ones that died. This story is not PETA-approved.
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 1
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 2
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 3
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 4
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 5
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 6
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 7
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 8
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 9
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 10
Raining Cats & Dogs Episode 11
I’m not going to ask if that woman was Chinese. I’d rather think poor ivory finally found a comfort zone for his existence. As viciously as you portrayed it, and it brutal as it sounds, you did create an illustration in which good finally overtakes evil. In his last days, Fido felt compassion. It may have created his downfall, but it also showed that no matter how depraved a society or terrible the conditions, such qualities as compassion, kindness, generosity and love will still exist.
It seems to be human nature (and consequently, dog nature too?) to either see the best in a person or the worst, without considering that “good” does not imply the person has no weaknesses or that “bad” is intricately evil with no redeeming qualities. Most people are somewhere in the middle, muddling on to basically good, and showing their worst traits when “bad” becomes an accepted measure of conduct, allowing people to justify discrimination, selective persecution, murder; even genocide.
Your story, with its intellectualizing dogs, is a very dark satire. While your illustrations of dog behavior did make me wonder a little more about the motivations of dogs and the language they use to communicate with each other, my suspicion is still that a dog’s mind reasons much like a six year old child’s, and that your story isn’t really about the possible dangers of a cat/dog world in a communicative agreement at all, but about human behavior.
Ah, can’t slip any metaphors pass you now can I? Thanks.