Photo by Jeyakumaran Mayooresan on Unsplash
Amelia gestured at the TV glowing in the middle of the dim living room like a UFO preparing for take-off.
“Will you look at that,” she said. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Owen didn’t look up from the peanuts he was shelling onto the living room floor, as if they were in a saloon in 1850s Wyoming. Because Amelia would only think this was the stupidest thing she ever saw for such a short period of time, until the next stupidest thing, it wasn’t worth giving her statement any attention.
On the TV, a petite woman in a business suit was trying to lead a sharp-nosed dog around and get it to run in front of a bunch of judges. The dog had a lot of long fur, like a pony, and a collar that was studded with what looked like rhinestones. The woman wore flat, shiny shoes and was running around in a circle, trying to get the dog to canter or trot or whatever verb it was that the judges were expecting it to do.
The dog, some kind of purebred whatever, was not having it. It sat down on its hairy haunches and looked down its long nose at the woman running in circles.
“You know why that’s so funny?” Amelia asked. “Who do you think is in charge there? All dressed up like she’s going to work in some office downtown, and she can’t even get that dog to sit up and say boo. Absolutely ridiculous.”
Owen shrugged and shook the bag of peanuts. He was almost out and he’d have to walk up to the convenience store to get more. It used to be owned by the Warners, but after that some other people bought it. He couldn’t think of their names.
The names of all the new people didn’t stick the way the names of the old neighbors did.
“Doesn’t really show much leadership potential, if she can’t even get a dog to follow her,” Amelia said.
On the TV, the dog was rolling around on the ground as if it was trying to lose a few fleas.
“Ha!” said Amelia. “If she does what he wants, maybe he’ll run or canter or whatever fool thing she’s asking him to do?”
“How do you know it’s a boy dog?” asked Owen. Then he said, “Oh.”
There was a knock at the door. Owen already knew it would be those two fresh-faced missionaries out to convert Amelia. She was too tender-hearted to tell them no, so they kept trying. If they could offer some tangible proof of God, maybe a free month’s rent or an occasional Sunday off, she could be more easily convinced. Soon he would need to put on his work uniform, one of those police knock-offs worn by the other rent-a-cops, and head out himself.
“Lander’s Security has your back!” his company T-shirt proclaimed. Given the number of layoffs recently, he thought they should add the fine print: “Until it doesn’t.”
“Hey!” Amelia said, greeting the missionaries with a warm smile. “Look at that!”
She pointed to the TV, where the dog had wandered over to a few other canine contestants and was busy sniffing. His embarrassed owner stood there, beet red underneath her heavy make-up. One of the other owners looked horrified. Owen felt a flash of respect. Maybe the dog’s long fur was a sign of nonconformity. No military buzz cut for this guy. He wasn’t going to sit and fetch just to follow orders.
“I feel bad for this lady, I really do,” Amelia said. “But when you have one of God’s creatures and you’re trying to make it do something unnatural, what do you expect?”
“It’s the sin of pride,” said the missionary who looked like Ron Howard in “Happy Days.” Even in the harsh morning sunlight, he was as pure as Ivory soap, no traces of Saturday night sin to wash away.
“When Noah packed all those animals on the Ark,” said Amelia, “was this what he had in mind? Training them to parade around on TV wearing little sweaters?”
She paused. Owen could feel her wheels spinning.
“Remember last week when you told me prayer was real, and I told you I needed to see it for myself?” she asked the other missionary, who looked like a teenager on a 1980s sitcom. “Can’t you do something?”
The Ron Howard look-alike shifted back and forth.
“You mean like….like prayer might make the dog obedient?” he asked.
“Sure,” Amelia said. “Make her dog listen to her. Or have him win.”
The Ron Howard look-alike shot the other missionary a look that said, Told you we shouldn’t have come back here.
Owen snorted and headed into the kitchen. When he came back out, holding his Cup O’Noodles spiked with two seasoning packets, the missionaries were kneeling on the floor with their hands outstretched. He looked at Amelia and raised one eyebrow.
“They are blessing them,” she said.
Owen shook his head and slurped his noodles.
Amelia peered at the TV, waiting.
“Well, I guess it didn’t work,” she said.
His owner had started to cry now. Owen wished they would cut to a commercial.
“Look at that,” the 1980’s sitcom missionary said.
The dog went up to his owner. She put her arm around him. He gave her a wet, sloppy kiss and nuzzled her shoulder.
“He’s saying sorry,” said Amelia. “What a sweetheart.”
The dog looked back at his tear-stained owner. She stood up and followed him. He went over to the judge’s bench and raised one leg. The judges froze, wide-eyed, watching him.
Owen laughed. “That’s telling them!”
The Ron Howard look-alike gasped.
“Did he really…did he really just do that?”
Amelia giggled. “He did. The sin of pride, huh?”
The dog ran back to his owner, who knelt down and gave him a hug. Then they both left the arena, heads held high.
Heather Bartos writes fiction and nonfiction. She has had essays in Fatal Flaw, Stoneboat Literary Journal, HerStry, and elsewhere, and upcoming in McNeese Review. Her flash fiction has appeared in The Dillydoun Review, The Closed Eye Open, Tangled Locks Journal, and other publications, and also won first place in the Baltimore Review 2022 Micro Lit Contest. Her short stories have appeared in Ponder Review, Bridge Eight, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, and elsewhere.