DAY 99: Cerberus and Sticks

It was a shanty on McMansion avenue, a reminder of the neighborhood's previous incarnation.  Gentrification had revitalized the neighborhood, but it had driven Mr Kosten inward.  He was usually seen wearing a flannel bathrobe and a grimace, and that was when he checked the mail, or straightened his 'BEWARE OF DOG" signs.
Cerberus was a blue pit mix; the posture suggested bulldog, and the proportions suggested bear.  Sticks was a scrawny hound breed, a silver-furred puppy that could tower over his adoptive brother - if he ever had the inclination.  They patrolled the Kosten estate day and night, barking off any would-be trespassers.
It happened that Mr Kosten's house was on the dividing line between the Raven Ridge housing development, and the Weeping Pines subdivision.  The two neighborhoods collided at Redford Avenue, and they chose to split the street down the middle.  Neither, however, were interested in claiming Mr Kosten.  Each had learned independently that he would not be convinced, cajoled, coerced, or bribed into ceding his property, and so they let him rot in his unclaimed spot.
Neither offered their trash services to him, which he did not miss; every couple of weeks, he would load his refuse onto a battered pickup truck and drive it to the dump himself.  And perhaps it was on one of those occasions that his gate was not secure enough, or simply not tall enough, but in his abscence, Sticks left the yard.

Cerberus called him back, but Sticks was intoxicated with freedom.  He dashed zig-zag from yard to yard, roaming further and further, until he disappeared in the mid-afternoon silence.  Cerberus trotted with worry, torn between the instinct to guard his home and to guard his brother.  Finally, he began to dig, calling and waiting for an answer...
He finished his hole first, and tunneled under the driveway gate.  Following the scent, Cerberus zigged and zagged, searching for any trace of Sticks.  He felt a rumbling under his feet, and turned to the source, seeing a schoolbus come to a stop at the corner.  As Cerberus walked toward it, the door opened, where a child waited to exit.  She saw Cerberus, and screamed, and the door closed.
Cerberus circled the bus, ran laps around it as he barked and growled.  Inside, some of the children stared at the window, in excitement or fear; others, along with the bus driver, were on their phones.  In a moment, parents began to exit their homes, to see the beast that had their children trapped.

And then Mr Kosten drove up.  Honking to get anyone out of the street, he saw Cerberus in the middle of the road.  He exited the truck, and called to him.  Cerberus was too jostled, too petrified; he kept barking everyone at bay.
Mr Kosten dropped to one knee, and called Cerberus.  The rest of the street froze as the pit walked to his human.  With a nuzzle and a pat, the old man led his dog into the truck cab.  Meeting no one's gaze, he called for Sticks, and walked over to the driver's side; from out of the yards, the hound leaped into the flatbed, just as he started the engine.  They drove down the avenue and up the gravel drive, closing the gate behind them.



inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Pluto's Crowd-Sourced Moons"