Man with a dog

In the little house behind a brewery, in the little, tiny, narrow street full of little packed up little houses, lived one veteran. Why veteran? He was to young for regular retirement. Where did he served? When I will say he was a military. I will be cross with military folks, when I will say he was an ex-policeman, I will get it from policemen ...He hold himself straight, so he was somebody, and he was the veteran, because he served his time, so he could retire. And do not interrupt me, because it is not so important; important is, that he have had a beautiful dog. A German Shepherd. It might be a sheep dog. No, he wasn't a sheep dog. How do you know it? They have curly fur. Are you making it up? No. How they look after sheep all the time, their fur began to be curly, too. First a tail gets curly, then legs and a chest, and whole dog is nice and curly. Of course, the sheep like such curly dog and treat him as their own kind. So, it wasn't the sheep dog. What was his name? Rex. What was the name of the man? I do not know. He didn't tell me. And this man and his dog were walking outside all the time. Rex was skinny as shingle and smart like dickens. Are the dickens smart? I do not know. It's only such saying. It's English word, you know. I would like to say something else: a town was full of grey squirrels. Squirrels were everywhere. They were begging at people's back door and people were buying peanuts for them and the squirrels were sitting on their hind legs, holding a peanut with their front legs and eating it. They were cute. The squirrels walked electric wires from one house to the house across and above the street, they were crossing the road, and the cars were stepping on the brakes. "My Gosh, I do not want to run over the squirrel, I would have to think about it whole day at work, and I would feel like a murderer." Suddenly there were not so many squirrels around. They didn't jump from the tree to another tree and didn't cross the street. First they disappeared from the street where the veteran lived. Then he began to walk his dog father and farther and everywhere they went the squirrels began to disappear. "There are not many squirrels this summer. All of them disappeared." People were saying. Then the man and his dog showed up at the cemetery and all squirrels which lived there were gone. The man began to show up at children's playground. One little girl said: "The dog was trying to climb a tree after the squirrel." "Did he succeed?" "No. He was only jumping at the tree, and the squirrel was high on the branch, and then she jumped to another tree and another tree, and she was gone." The squirrels also disappeared from the playground and adjacent areas. "There are not many squirrels this summer." People were saying. Then the man with his dog has showed up in the street behind a church. The squirrels also vanished there. A boy, about ten years old, who lived in that street, he was such a fearless kid, said: "The man feeds squirrels to the dog." "Aren't you making it up? Did you actually see the dog to eat the squirrels?" No, but the dog has such hungry eyes, when he sees the squirrel." "Phleese, tell me, how he eats them: with a tail, hair, bones and all?" "I do not know. I think so. He is not going to skin the squirrel first." "You must be kidding. Lets follow them." The boys went next day to look for the man and his dog. They were gone and the squirrels were gone as well. Why the man was doing this? He has to train his dog first. Maybe he didn't have enough money to feed himself and the dog and he loved his dog very much ... How many squirrels a day can such a German Shepherd eats daily, what do you think?" "Two, or three ..." Think, he eats three meals a day. I would say three." "The dog is so skinny ... He doesn't catch the squirrel each time and also has to be careful, so will not get caught." "He trained his dog well." "Yeah. The dog is well trained. They understand each other well: the man and his dog." "Do you think the dog catches the squirrels also for his master?" "Maybe." "Does he also eats squirrels?" "Yeah. He skins them, sells the pellets, and he cooks a stew for himself. He also shares his meal with the dog." "No, the dog already ate his share." "Listen, isn't it against the law to catch the squirrels?" "No." "Lets post a sign." "We don't want you and your dog in our street." They hanged the sign on the post and people signed it. The man and his dog didn't show up anymore. The squirrels returned back to the street after some time. Copyright (c) Marie Neumann Written in Czech 2010. English translation 2/3/2013 Pottsville