ds_flashfiction | Dressing on the Side

Not mine. Nor likely ever to be. Not for profit, just for fun. Rated PG, for feathers, blood, and lupine lethalness (off screen). Title from those letters that your doctor gets sent from the specialists you see.

Despite my muttered urgings, the light remained stubbornly red. Dieffenbaker grunted in an interrogatory manner. I caught his eye in the rear view mirror and mouthed at him, ‘I don’t know. It should have turned by now.’ While wolves and dogs are thought to be color blind, they can, in fact, distinguish between red and green, as well as black and white.

Impatient finger drumming caught my attention, and I turned to my other companion. He pointed animatedly at the light, which had turned green as I was speaking to Dief.

Navigating through rush hour traffic required a good deal of my attention, but I was able to catch his question as we turned into Lincoln Park. “Yes, I picked up the package from Louise. I’ve got to say, I find your obsession with it somewhat ghoulish.”

Outraged noise greeted my statement.

“Careful. Remember the after-care instructions.” I replied, consciously imitating my grandmother at her most Edwardian.

I had to admit that his response, a single finger salute, did do precisely that.

There was some hurried, impatient sounding squeaking as I pulled into the parking lot of his building and parked. I pulled the package out of the trunk of his car while he let Dieffenbaker out of the back seat. Dief sniffed at the grocery sack, and then licked my hand in a blatant attempt to tickle me, and thus force me to drop the sack. I chided him.

“There’s no use in trying that. You will almost certainly get more than your fair share when it’s cooked: I am -not- letting you have so much as a gram of it uncooked. God knows where it’s been.”

More impatient squeaking and then a demanding tap on the roof of the GTO. Dief looked at our companion, who impatiently shoved the dry-erase board at me.

“Well, yes, Ray. I suppose you’re right. But do be careful. You want to try to not over use the wrist, either.” I unlocked the building, then the apartment, set the grocery bag down on the counter, and started the tea kettle. While it heated, I changed out of my uniform.

Ray went, as he’d mentioned, to get a shower.

When he emerged, clad in clean sweats and one of my flannel shirts, the feathers and blood had been mostly cleaned out of his hair. I convinced him to sit down at the kitchen table, where I fished a stray bit of down from behind his ear, unwrapped the now-damp bandage from his throat and re-wrapped it with dry gauze. He reached for the board, but it was just out of his reach on the kitchen counter. Dief obligingly snagged it and brought it over, gallantly resisting the urge to steal our dinner.

“Would you like me to...?” I nodded toward the kitchen.

Ray shook his head emphatically. ‘MINE,’ he wrote in large, unfriendly letters on the dry erase board. He underlined it for good measure. I nodded, and he got up to broil the ostrich steaks.

I pulled a letter-sized tablet from the drawer under the telephone and located my fountain pen, and began the thank-you and condolence note to our benefactor.

It only takes an extra moment to be polite, after all. Even if her bird had been a pain in Ray’s neck.