Ergo, the Ogre

This piece was written in May of 2019 for no particular reason, and now it is being repurposed for Fandango’s Flashback Friday.

To Monte, it seemed as if they’d been walking for days. He wished they could stop for a snack & a drink of water, but apparently The Guy was on some sort of mission. Since they’d begun their journey, he’d barely acknowledged Monte’s existence. Ever since the motorized machine stopped moving and they started walking, it was as if The Guy had forgotten that there was someone on the other end of the leash.

Monte wondered where they were going, and why.

Was it something I’d done?

In his small and addled mind, Monte went over the events of the last several days. He hadn’t done anything extraordinarily stupid, unless you count the Porterhouse steak incident.

Yes, that was a bit of a boo-boo.

To Monte, it looked good enough to eat, so he ate it. Come to find out that The Guy had had other plans for that hunk of meat. The fact that he’d left him the bone (albeit scored with tooth marks) didn’t seem to make much difference.

Some folks were just plain hard to please. He’d try harder next time, though. Monte wished there some way to communicate this to The Guy, but obviously, there was the language barrier.

Maybe they would happen upon a park soon, and The Guy would think to stop for a break. Monte would have loved to take a load off and rest for a bit. But on the other paw, it would be just his luck that The Guy would want to play “fetch.”

Monte hated playing fetch. He wasn’t very good at it but it was expected of him so he performed as best he could. The Guy and his friends seemed to enjoy watching him run back & forth across the yard like a simpleton. They’d howl with laughter if Monte brought back something other than what was thrown.

All complaining aside, Monte knew he was one of the lucky ones. He’d heard a million horror stories about what happened to those poor unfortunates who don’t get adopted. Thank God there was now an ASPCH (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humanoids).

Even though Monte was of mixed breed (Italian/Swedish), and kind of big & goofy looking, The Guy loved him anyway.