The Man with the Three-Legged Dog and the Pet Raven

“See?! There he is again!” announced the excited boy from across the living room. “Come see or you’ll miss it!” Jimmy kneeled on the brown leather couch while calling out for his big brother; Guibs laid on the head rest beside him while barking at the stranger. 

“I’m coming, relax,” mumbled Patrick as he sauntered towards the window. 

“Come, quick!” 

Patrick continued to walk at the same speed until he reached the window. He opened the curtains wider and looked at the street outside—empty. “Who are you talking about?”

The boy stared out the window in disbelief, then his cheeks flushed and his eyes watered. “He was there, I promise! He was right there! You were too slow!”

“This is the last time I looked, Jimmy,” Patrick said before walking away. “I’m done playing along, this is getting annoying.” 

Jimmy wanted to protest, but once he found his words he heard the sound of his brother’s door closing. He thought about going to his mom, but she had also asked him to stop talking about the man with the three-legged dog and pet raven. Every time he saw the creepy stranger he tried to show someone, but the trio was always gone by the time anyone looked. Once he took his mom’s phone from her purse and tried to take a picture of the man, but he was too late. He earned three days without playing on the Switch because of that—he never tried again. His frustration kept him determined, but now he was starting to lose hope. Perhaps it was time to accept that the man was not real, that Jimmy was indeed the only one who could see him, as his family kept suggesting. 

#

A week went by without Jimmy looking out the living room window once. He forced himself to forget the man with the dog and the raven, and it was starting to work. There were times when he forgot about the stranger altogether, and those brief moments were growing longer. His mother expressed her contentment at least twice, and his big brother once mentioned how glad he was that the whole man-with-dog-and-raven nonsense was over. They all seemed more patient towards Jimmy—he liked that. 

The stranger and his pets had left the boy’s mind almost completely by the time Jimmy saw him again. He went outside to put the green bin in front of the house as his mom requested, changed the position of the bin at least five times (he didn’t want it to bother the pedestrians, but he also didn’t want for the garbageman to miss it), then went back inside. As he was closing the front door he caught a glimpse of the man in dark clothes walking on the sidewalk across the street, the three-legged dog following close behind and the raven flying overhead. 

Jimmy froze. Part of him wanted to shout for his mom who was stirring a pot on the stove to come see, but his other part was afraid to. As he struggled to decide, he saw the man turn a corner and disappear. The dog spun around a turf of grass a couple of times, then arched his back down and released his bowls. Once he was done, he vanished on the same corner as his owner. 

“What are you doing Jimmy?” asked his mother from the kitchen. “Close the door, it’s getting cold in here.”

“One second,” answered the boy as he walked out the door. A few seconds later he returned with a small plastic bag and a big smile on his face. “See?! I wasn’t lying!”

The boy jerked the bag in front of his mom, who winced and stepped back in response. “What is that? Poop?” she asked while covering her nose with the collar of her shirt.

“Yeah!” the boy answered gleefully. 

“What? Why do you have that? Throw it away!”  

“It’s the three-legged dog’s poop. I saw him pushing it out. See? I was right.”

“Jimmy, stop this!” She snatched the plastic bag from the boy’s hand and threw it in the garbage bin outside. When she returned she kneeled down in front of her son and held his arms in her hand. “Jimmy, listen to me. There is no man with a three-legged dog and a bird, you understand? We went over this before, I thought you were starting to understand.”

“It’s a raven, a black raven,” the boy added in a low voice.

“I don’t fucking care!” his mom snapped. She then closed her eyes and took deed

and long breaths. “I’m sorry Jimmy, I shouldn’t have yelled. But you gotta stop this, you understand? Please, Jimmy. Do it for me, okay?”

“Okay mom, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay my little prince,” his mom said. “Now go play in your room while I finish dinner, okay?”

“Okay.”

#

After that day Jimmy avoided the front door and window as much as he could. Since they weren’t allowed to leave the house, he saw no need to go near the street. His mom never asked him to put the garbage out again. The boy then spent about three weeks playing on the family’s Switch. He had successfully taken the man with the dog and the raven out of his mind; now all he thought about was how to defeat Patrick on Smash. He also texted his classmates constantly—mostly about how glad they were that school got cancelled—and had started to watch The Mandalorian. He kept his mind busy, leaving no time to think about the stranger who only he could see. 

Everything was calm and peaceful; then Jimmy’s mom thought it was a good idea to take her sons out for a drive across town, to get them out of the house. Patrick wasn’t too happy about it, but Jimmy was excited—he took Guibs. He looked out the window during most of the trip, commenting on this and that and asking questions of his mom that made his big brother sigh. Eventually they were all silent, so the boy started playing with the dog until his mom told him to settle down. Then Jimmy started looking at the houses outside, searching for teddy bears at window sills. That was when he saw the man with the three-legged dog and pet raven walking on the empty sidewalk. 

“Look look, right there!” the boy shouted. “Mom, Patrick, look!”

He jabbed the point of his index finger against the back window like a woodpecker perched on a tree. 

“Jimmy, stop! I’m driving!” his mom said. 

“But he’s right there! Look!” Jimmy insisted.  

“She told you to stop, so stop!” Patrick shouted back.

“Stop yelling!” the mom yelled. 

“Woof woof!” barked Guibs.

“Guibs, stop!”

“Just look!”

“Give it a rest, for fuck’s sake!”

“Don’t talk to your brother like that!”

“Please, just look, he’s right there!”

“Jimmy!” 

They suddenly heard a car horn blaring ahead. The boy turned to look but was blinded by bright headlights. That’s where his memory cuts off. 

#

Jimmy woke under bright lights which formed a halo behind the masked faces staring down at him. He could move his eyelids, maybe his toes—he couldn’t tell—but that was all. His current state reminded him of early mornings on school days, only ten times worse. All he wanted to do was sleep. Maybe I’m sleeping already, he thought hopefully, maybe this is just a dream. 

The next time he opened his eyes his whole body ached. He started to cry, and the doctors came rushing in. They injected a clear liquid on a tube, then Jimmy slowly went back to sleep. That happened two or three times before he was able to stay up without being in pain. Then an old man in a white jacket sat down on his bedside and laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. 

“How are you doing there, bud?”

Jimmy tried to answer, but no sound came out of his mouth. 

“It’s okay if you can’t speak. Don’t force yourself,” the doctor took a deep breath before continuing. “Jimmy, there is something I need to tell you…”

#

On the day Jimmy left the hospital, they brought him Guibs back from the vet. His front-left leg was missing; a yellowish bandage covered both his stump and neck. The nurse carefully put the dog on the boy’s lap—both remained still. Guibs laid his head on Jimmy’s arm, squinting his eyes and shivering. The boy slowly placed his left hand on the dog’s back—his fur sprouting from between the kid’s fingers like tall grass on the floorboard of abandoned houses—and there it remained. 

The nurse wheeled them through the front door of the hospital towards a blue minivan. Beside it stood a middle-aged woman in a white button-up blouse and long beige skirt. She greeted Jimmy with a warm smile once the nurse pushed his wheelchair closer— Jimmy remained silent. 

“Hey little guy,” she said, crouching down. “I’m so sorry about what happened. But don’t worry, we’ll take care of you now. And your little friend too! You’ll be safe with us.”

Jimmy kept his eyes on the dog in his lap, and his mouth shut. After a few seconds the woman got up and motioned towards the boy while looking at the minivan, then two men in uniform came out of it: one of them, tall and strong, picked Jimmy with the dog in his lap and carried them both to the back seat of the van; the other, a little chubby on the side and with a bushy brown beard, struggled to fold the wheelchair and fit it on the trunk. The woman sat beside Jimmy, and the two guys in the front—the bear-looking one drove. 

“Don’t worry Jimmy,” she said with a smile, her left hand brushing Guibs’ fur. “Everything will be okay now. You’ll have friends there, and soon we’ll find you a new home. I know it’s hard buddy, I know it hurts, but it will pass—I promise you. We’ll help you with that as well. We have someone who’s specialized in…”

Jimmy stopped listening after “Jimmy.” 

THE END