The Collective Good
I sniff its feet. Plastic. Metal like spoons from which peanut butter can be licked. Old smoke from the Big Firework. And something familiar underneath it all—strawberry jelly. I back away, the fur on my neck raising. Is it a trick? I will not be tricked.
Its two eyes open, shining bright.
"Beep," the thing says.
Stay away. I warn the thing. I’m not a good dog and you’d better listen to me or else trouble’s comin’.
The thing’s eyes close again and it keeps still. Good, I huff before walking away.
#
I am padding through an old house, finding a place to sleep for the night that is as comfortable as Go To Bed used to be, when I smell the thing again. Rubber like a good squeaky ball. Metal. Smoke. Jelly.
I grr but the tricksy thing doesn’t want to listen. Instead, it waves its arms in the air.
Stop hunting me, I bark. And I hope very hard that it goes away.
Man and Boy and I used to hunt sometimes. After the Big Fireworks that made us leave the little house with all our good sniffs and soft things, we lived like wolves. Wild and free, and even though we didn’t have anymore Squeaky Turtle it was okay. Boy and I would find rabbits, and I would run and chomp down on their little necks and shake them until they were limp. Boy was so happy with me that he would clap and clap and give me pets all over. Wiggly and good. Copper blood smell mixing with adrenaline and heart songs.
“Good girl, Daisy,” Boy would say, gentling the rabbit from my jaws. And then we would howl at the sky with joy for food and killing.
#
I remember a thing like the thing that is following me. Boy would keep them on his high shelf back in the little house and look at them sometimes, roving his fingers over each one, getting his beautiful smell—sweat and deodorant and strawberry jelly—all over them.
“These robots are not toys, Daisy,” Boy would say. “They’re collectibles.”
But sometimes, if I was sitting very good and not jumping at all, he would take one down to let me sniff.
#
Go away, I tell the tricksy collectible. Leave me alone or else my pack will hunt you down.
But again it does not heed my warning. Instead it waves its stiff arms around like Boy does when he wants my attention. But the thing does not sniff like fun. It just sniffs like memory and smoke. Smoke like the Big Firework that brought more collectibles, big ones that made us run from our home, and all the fire and noise. Boom. Boom. Smoke. Fear. Salty tears I lick off Boy’s face.
This one is only a small collectible though. Small like the ones Boy kept on his shelf.
A whine escapes my throat before I realize it’s happening, and then I am whining and howling and I don’t know why. I miss Boy and Man and Go To Bed and Squeaky Turtle and Peanut Butter Spoon. I miss scritches behind my ears and running along the river and howling together at the moon, consumed with joy for our own wildness.
When the whining and remembering stops, I realize I am far, far away from the collectible and from the lovely trash can I had been exploring. I’m back in the woods. Back at the old tent where the Boy and the Man lived after the Firework until they didn’t anymore. I have not been back here in a very long time, and it’s starting to smell more like leaves and dirt and grub-worm. Boy’s smell is still there though if I search hard enough.
I curl up on his old blanket and breathe him in, wondering where he is now.
#
Crunch of leaves. Smell of metal and plastic. It’s a good thing, I think, if the small collectible is persistent enough to follow me out here. Persistence keeps a pack strong and safe and together. I could not keep my pack together, but I will do better this time.
The collectible does not come into the tent. It hovers nearby. Eyes shining bright in the nighttime, keeping watch.
“Keep watch, Daisy,” Man used to say to me. “The ‘droids won’t get us out here, but there’s bears in these woods.”
Bears are the worst sniff I know. Worse than smoke. Worse than collectibles.
#
I think the collectible was separated from its pack because it has not left my side for several Moons. Maybe it lost its Boy like I did. Maybe it was a bad collectible. I cannot know.
Sometimes I howl and sometimes it makes noises back. Sometimes it makes a noise that sounds exactly like me, and the fur bristles on my neck with the strangeness of it. The collectible can also make bird noises and cat noises and I think it probably has a lot of noises stuck inside it. It does the beep noise the most though.
Boy used to do the beep noise. “Beep” he would say when he pulled another collectible off his shelf. And my head would pop up because it meant Boy was happy and maybe I could get him to play with me if I sat nicely and brought him Squeaky Turtle.
#
“Beep” says the collectible.
I have brought back a chipmunk that did not know to sniff for me until it was too late, but the collectible will not eat. I don’t understand this collectible, but if it won’t take the food, that’s its choice. More for me. I crunch the foolish chipmunk’s brittle bones and rich, warm blood.
“Beep” says the collectible again. It is interrupting my meal so I move away to the other side of the clearing.
“Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.”
I grr at it.
It does not stop. Its eyes start to flash, on, off, on, off. So loud. So bright.
And then I sniff it. The bear: musk, mossy fur, claws. I sniff the rivers it has wandered through and the trees it has climbed. I sniff the fish it’s eaten this morning and the berries it ate the day before that and everything it’s eaten all the way back to the beginning of time. Everything.
The bear peaks its head out of the trees to see us. Big, monstrous eyes. Hungry. Eyes that see me and think I am food.
I am not food. And I am not a good dog either. Instead, I am anger and longing and hope and violence and a little bit of strawberry jelly.
Howling. Barking. Charging. Biting. Tasting fur that feels gritty on my tongue. Tasting blood. The bear sweeps a paw and sends me tumbling away, but I am up again. Bark Bark Bark.
Behind me the collectible beeps too. We are a pack.
“Stay here and guard the tent, Daisy,” Boy said the day he and Man disappeared. But I didn’t guard it. I roamed and roamed and caught a fat rabbit so we could howl with joy again.
The bear growls and tries to knock me down, but I am too small and quick. Quick like a quick dog. Persistent like a collectible. The bear is getting frustrated. He sniffs like musk and hunger and strawberry jelly.
I never saw Boy or Man again after that. I was not a good dog. I did not protect my pack. But I can do better this time.
When the bear finally leaves, my back is crying blood, and my ribs hurt when I breathe. In out. In out. I go back to the collectible and sit down.
“Good girl, Daisy,” says the collectible. It is Boy’s voice echoing through its tinny speaker. “Good girl.”
And then we howl at the sky.