Short Story: One Taco Short

by Russ Hall

He went to get a drink and his tongue lapped in a harsh rasp across the bottom of the empty bowl.

Across the room his upright ones were watching the fake people in the big fake window again. A dog barked and jumped into a lap. When he’d tried that he’d been pushed back to the floor. “Get down, Taco.” That was because of the food. Popcorn at the moment.

Someone at the pet rescue center had named him Taco because he’d been found shivering under a highway overpass and wouldn’t come out until someone held a taco closer and closer. All he knew was that it had been meaty, crunchy, and delicious.

He loved food, but there hadn’t been any for quite a while—two days, at least. Sniffing around under the table legs hadn’t helped. Big feet had even shooed him away from there.

Back at the rescue center he had gotten half a bowl of dry food at dawn, and no more. When the various different upright ones would hook up his leash he sniffed all the way to the door, sometimes getting a bit of kibble spilled from another crate or even something from outside the cages of one of the cats.

He remembered being brought to the center. He’d never known his mother. That bitch!

But he remembered how happy his upright ones had been when they took him away from there. How his tail had wagged. They had petted him then too, and he had eaten twice a day. Not now.

He went to the small room, but the door was closed. He could always smell water there, but couldn’t get to it with his short legs. If they left the door open on the rain room, though, he could dash inside and lick at the damp tiles.

His stomach felt as hollow as a gourd. He went over to the softer one.

“Git!” She swung a bare foot and moved him away, kept him from jumping up. It was popcorn again with her.

He didn’t even crave the puffy white things, but there were times…like now.

The door to the outside was almost closed, but the rug there had bunched and kept it from closing all the way. He pushed at it with his two front paws. It nudged but didn’t open. He pushed again, and again.

Ah. Now it was open just wide enough.

He squeezed through out onto a yard of mostly dirt with patches of grass from when it had once all been greener and nice to roll in. He sniffed his way to an upright weed and had a pee. That was that. He looked about, sniffing as he went.

No sense checking the gate. But wait. It was open a crack.

Using his trusty paws once more he pushed and shoved. He pushed some more. It opened wide.

Without a glance back he shot through it and broke into a run. He ran and ran, as fast as he could go, looking about the whole time. Oh, joy, oh, joy. His nails clicked across the hard surfaces and dug into the softer ones. Free again at last!

Somewhere out in in this wider world, there had to be a taco and a cool bowl of water waiting just for him.

Photo by   Kata Czegledi  on  Scopio