Green-Eyed Master

Green-Eyed Master

Master said good night to his two dogs, the girl Lhasa apso Chloe and the bulldog Donald.

Donald grumbled and rolled away from Chloe. For the past several weeks he’d not been himself, distant and petty about trifles. She didn’t know what was troubling him. She’d learned a bit of his cloudy past, that he’d come from the sea lands, abandoned by cruel men on the shore, ensnared in nets and locked in a pound whence Master rescued him. Perhaps he was still trapped in those days. She asked, “How’ve you been feeling lately, Donald?”

He grumbled. “Maybe I haven’t been getting enough sleep.”

Chloe said, “I recall you spending a great deal of time sleeping lately?”

“Maybe I haven’t been eating enough.”

True, she reflected. He did nose his half-empty bowl toward her on three separate occasions this past week. She didn’t discuss it other than to thank him, as she was always glad for more food.

He huffed loudly, and the sound was not unlike that a human baby might make, petulant and crabby. He rolled toward her. “Master’s certainly very good to you,” he said. “He’s not very nice to me, though. At the park today, he tossed the ball to you seventeen times, but only tossed it to me once.”

“Seventeen---?”

“I counted. It was seventeen.”

“Master did that because you take it and run in the opposite direction, and not toward him.”

“How do you know why he did it?”

“I’m surmising,” FfFi said, “because that’s the game, Donald. That’s how it’s played.”

“What’s the point of me just bringing it back to him? So he can throw it across the field again?”

“It’s fun!” she said, purposefully brightening. “Don’t you think?”

“Feels to me like an endless treadmill of conditioned response. Is that all there is? I’m involved in the game too. Maybe I should have some say in what I do with the ball.”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever known who doesn’t play the game the way it’s always been played.”

“I don’t like to play the game the way it’s always been played,” he said, mocking her tone. “Maybe I want something different.”

“If only you would be kindlier to Master…”

“Master this! Master that! He tries my patience with bone and balls! O, how Master baits me!” He exhaled loudly and hunched up. “You know what I think? I think he’s considering using a shock collar on me.”

“What is a shock collar?” Chloe asked, not liking the sound of it one bit.

“It is what Masters all around the world use to keep us docile, like sheep.”

“I’ve never seen a sheep,” Chloe said, distractedly. She did not like this conversation at all, and wished he would yield, consider the fun of the game, and nuzzle with her instead of all of this discontent.

“When one of us acts in a disapproving fashion, BZZZ goes the button, and it feels as though someone’s sticking a live electrical wire into you. Your eyes pop and your bones shake! Your heart races, but not like after a good run! Oh, no. It’s like there’s a many-legged machine inside of you that crawls all around and stings your inner core. BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ!”

“Never!” Chloe said. “Master would never do such a thing. He is kind and gentle, a loving man.”

“A loving man,” Donald mocked her, and the image of the petulant human baby returned to her mind’s eye. “A kind man? A gentle man? I’ve no doubt he would show no hesitation in shock collaring you. I also think he’d…”

“What?”

“He would cook me for dinner. I am sure of it. And he would take my place here with you.”

“What are you saying?” Chloe asked in horror, covering her ears with her paws. “How could you think such grotesque---?”

“Because of what you’ve said!” Donald growled. “I’ve heard you, in your sleep, don’t think I haven’t!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Why? Don’t you want Master’s attention? You certainly want it on the parkland. My question is, where else do you want it?”

She gasped. “You filthy cur, you---!”

“You talk in your dreams, and I hear every single word you say, Chloe. ‘Oh, Master, oh, Master, a diamond collar, for me? A diamond leash? A diamond cage? Oh Master!’ Phsaw! Next, you’ll be dreaming that I was out of the picture altogether.”

“No,” Chloe said. “The way the Master treats you has nothing to do with me.”

“Or, maybe you’re whispering in his ear? Maybe you are the tick under his collar?”

“You are unreasonable, Donald! Stop!”

“And those green eyes of his, like the parkland, like the fields, I’d love to chew them out of his head!”

“Why is such anger coming out of you?”

“I want something more, something of substance. I want justice! That’s all, Chloe. Justice!”

“I cannot believe you. You need your sleep.” She rolled and scooched away. The things he’d said needled her, though. From where had such ideas arisen? Certainly, she loved Master. Of everyone she knew, only Donald disdained him so. What was she to do? She tried not to whimper, lest Donald apologize and become affectionate. His argumentativeness, his harshness… she’d only known him for a few months, after all, a stray abandoned portside, but immediately adapted him as consort, his pouting mug, his hulking shoulders, his brooding ways. But now these things had become frightening to her. What was she to do? She closed her eyes and focused on pleasantries, the way the sun shone on the green fields on a nascent spring day, the aromatic zest of the rawhide chew.

Her dream began with Donald and her romping about in dense foliage; rather than a collar, he wore a bright spotted bowtie that showed off his eyes. They sat and had something called a “picnic,” like an affair she’d gone on several times while Master’s wife still lived. Chloe and Donald each ate the choicest eye fillets, cuts succulent and savory. They tumbled about, and Donald laughed like he had when she first told her joke about the cat who drowned in a pond. She felt the pump of her legs returning a bone to Master’s hand, the reassuring touch of Master’s hand on her throat; the way Master caressed her chest.

Then came the slick sounds of gnashing and tearing, and the nightmare began. There were a few screams, then they died, and Donald returned to bed, red-faced. His neck was red, his withers red, and his chest heaved like a storm of red.

Chloe leapt up, turned in two quick circles to reassure herself she was not dreaming, and began to hyperventilate. The blood dripped from his fur. She tried to control her nerves. She felt as if she were wearing that thing called the shock collar. She had failed her one task, her one obligation: to protect Master, to guard and roar when Master was in danger.

He opened his unclean mouth, jowls filled with fluid: “Come with me.”

“No,” she said, looking over his shoulder to Master’s room.

He hulked closer. “No?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation.

He laid two beslobbered, milky white orbs on the ground before her. “For you,” he said simply.

She rolled the around in a semicircle with her nose. The smell of them was like chestnuts, like musky bleach, and she asked, “Where is the green? His eyes are green. Where is the green?”

“They are not his eyes.” He reached to Chloe and smeared blood from his paws across her cheeks and brow, then sauntered through the doggy door into the night.