YOU WANNA DO SOMETHING FUN?

    -You wanna do something fun?

Finaly the day had come for Tillie Haberland to get a new broom. It was her fifthieth birthday today and there were some changes to be made in her life. Tillie Haberland decided that the blues was hanging around the corners for long enough and her whole house could use a good sweep. She put on her bright red dancing shoes, recently found in the attic, snapped the leash on Satan’s collar and decided to pay a visit at the local hardware store.

Nothing could stop her now. She had waited long enough to set her house in order, but she knew that after the happy events of the previous months nothing could ever be the same. Tillie felt a sudden urge to laugh out loud and remembered for how long, how radiculously long, she was feeling miserable before Satan’s nose tapped upon her door.

Just as one can’t keep the good dog down forever, nothing could keep Tillie Haberland in the state of depression, once she got a sniff of all the fun that was available out there. Both doubt and fear no longer seemed like appealing states of mind and her long-repressed intuition was demanding to be let out into the sunshine.

Tillie Haberland felt no longer confined by someone else’s judgments and she was done being, looking, feeling and smelling like everybody else, done betraying herself and no longer willing to deny her own truth in order to please others. Life was too short for all that. Somewhere between those trillions of cells a real Tillie was demanding a life that’s good for HER, full of connections, love, laughter, giving from the heart and the moments filled with beauty. She felt her power coming back to her and was open to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of her old life, without missing a step during that long-overdue methamorphosis. Some could be afraid of such dramatic changes, but Tillie instinctivelly knew that the fearful resistance was pointless and futile and she felt prepared to join back in the cosmic flow of LIFE.

Carefree and happy to be alive at last, she felt determined not to let any more of her precious time slip through her fingers. She let Satan out and followed, slaming the door behind them.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the street, Scott Wegener was wallowing in shame, anger, self-pity and all the other fun emotions guys like Scott take long years to master. He was just about getting ready to intensify his wallowing on the acount of seeing the very bottom of his large fruit-jar with no moonshine residue remaining, when the loud slamming of the door of the house across the street drew his attention.

Scott Wegener put out his cigarette and turned off the radio, giving the unravelling scene the whole, undivided attention it deserved. And here it was. That crazy black woman across the street, standing outside her front door, wearing nothing but an old housedress and a radiculous pair of the glittering, red cowboy boots. She stood there, looking straight at the sun, while Satan, that nasty little mongrel of hers was entertaining himself peeing all over shiny, brand new tires of Scott’s Harley, all the while maintaining eye contact with it’s owner.

-That may be just the last thing you ever do, you slimy little shit.

Scott always detested that four-legged parody of an animal and he felt the time was ripe to let it be known. He reached behind the door frame, stopped his rocker and pulled out the shot gun.

He liked how easy it was. Aim and fire.

He pulled out the trigger only to have an opportunity to see Satan jerk his head up in a split second in order to catch a still steaming bullet with his small front teeth.

-I’m Satan. You can’t shoot me, moran.

Scott heard the dog say loud and clear, right before spitting the crushed bullet from in-between his teeth, all the way to the opposite side of the street in a general direction of his assassins front-yard.

Tillie Haberland appeared completely unfazed by the whole episode. She looked straight into Scott Wegener’s eyes and said:

-I have a distinct impression that all these dozens of times I kept telling you what I think about your self-imposed parking arrangements didn’t manage to hit the homerun. Perhaps I was not expressing myself clearly enough and perhaps upon our return from few simple arrands we set out to do, this fine transportational device of yours will no longer be casting a shadow upon my primroses. Perhaps… Well… Of we go… Thank you in advance, kind sir and a lovely day to you. C ‘mon, boy, let’s get this show on the road.

Satan proudly positioned himself by her right side, wagged his tail, casted one more cold, long look at Scott’s face and then they were off towards the center of town.

Scott Wegener found himself all alone on an empty street. He took a while to collect his thoughts and arrived at the only possible conclusion – the End of the World has finally come. For quite a while by now he suspected that one of these days may turn out to be the Day of the Judgment and now he felt well prepared for it, his faith being a belief in what one doesn’t see, rewarded by seeing what one insists on believing. No, siree, he was not gonna wind up like any of these poor loser neighbours of his, caught with his hand in the potty. Some people choose not to open up when the uncomfortable truth knocks upon the door, but Scott Wegener was not one of such people. He felt ready and way ahead of everybody else. Scott walked inside his house for a minute, only to emerge carrying a medium-size leather bag, which, along with his shutgun, he neatly attached at the rear end of the Harley. He didn’t see the point of locking his front door, because he was not expecting to ever be back. While Satan enjoyed the first Banana Split of his life, Scott Wegener mounted his fine two wheeler, pointed it westward and drove away, never to be heard off again.

Tillie and Satan were walking in silence for a couple of blocks, each immersed in own thoughts. Then Tillie spoke:

-„Are you all right, dear? To think that scoundrel wanted to hurt you… You handled it well, I must give you that…

-„I’m fine, Tillie, forget about it… I bet we won’t be seeing much of him anymore.

-„I hope so… Got any other skills you’d like to tell me about or are we gonna play it by ear?

-Don’t know what to tell you…

-Never mind, sweetheart… Forget the arrands, let’s have us some rice-cream. On the way back we’ll stop at The Village Hardware and get my birthday present.

-Happy Birthday, Tillie.

-Thank you, deary. Here we are…

Tillie took a good look at her companion and came to realize that he could look a bit intimidating at first glance. A bit stocky, very muscular, his broadly structured head in perfect harmony with a long muzzle and a black nose at it’s end, accentuating a powerful jawbone, habitually spread in a widest smile one ever seen on a dog, revealing a set of shark-sharp teeth. If the long, wide, baby-pink tongue wasn’t hanging down, usually on his left side, Tillie observed, a piece of wood picked out from the backyard would, the very size of a fine hand-rolled Cuban cigar. Unlike other dogs, Satan had a habit of carrying his sticks hanging down, loosely on his fangs in a manner that kept making Tillie, against her better judgment, want to offer him some light, time and time again.

-Come to think of it, you do look a bit like a Pitt-bull… Any idea who your folks were?

-No, never met them. I just remember living on my own.

-You poor thing. Well, it’s all behind you now. Every dog needs a home and you’re sure to have one one with me if you want.

-You’re the nicest human I know, Tillie.

-There’s plenty of nice folks out there and you gonna meet some of them, don’t you worry. And the dogs. Now the weather is just perfect for making friends. What does that poster say, I forgot my glassess, looks like a cooking class or something… Can you make it out?

-We invite you to the Community Center for Spring Cooking courses, Mexican, Chinese, Sushi and desserts.

Reading did not present any challenges to that canine.

-Chinese, that sounds good. Let’s go, sign up, it’s only a couple of blocks away. After we’re done here.

Shortly after finishing their desserts they moved towards the shopping center, Satan waited for Tillie outside the market,while she picked their favourite stuff for dinner. And a couple of tubs of rice-cream.

Then there was a hardware store and then Tillie signed up for the Chinese cooking class with a real Chinese chef.

And then they went back home in the highest of spirits with a brown bag filled with all their favourites and a brand new portable Hoover Miracle-Man. Tillie decided to go with the spirit of times, besides, her plans were just too grand for a single broom to handle.

The primeroses basking in the sun were heralding a new world order at numer 17.

Just as Satan was expecting, there was no Scott Wegener or his fine two-wheeler anywhere around, which combined with the recent memory of Scott’s frozen face at the sight of the bullet being caught mid-air brought a wide grin of satisfaction upon the hairy, freckled face of our hero. Satan had his miracles too…

-It’s kind of fun to do the impossible…

Long enough he was putting up with Scott’s misbehaviour, calling Tillie and her visitors that ‘n’ word, that one he really didn’t like, he watched him shove his woman around untill she got a good sense to finally leave him, but enough is enough and every dog is bound to have his day, so they say.

He felt his nostrils filling up with the scent of cooked pasta, waking up the eager tastebuds which in turn, as if by a magical, magnetic pull, made his entire body turn towards the very source of the phenomenon.

Kinda like when that Poodle-she passed him by on the street today, the one he wasn’t formally acquointed with as yet, the one that seemed to draw him towards herself by her mere existance alone. The one he just couldn’t wait to get his nose on and get a good sniff at.