The Dog, the Man, and the Walnut: Original Piece

Instead of my usual shenanigans, I decided to post a creative writing piece I just randomly threw together. Before I begin, I want to point out that Martin Luther King Day is reported to be the day with one of the highest suicide rates… that in mind, here’s a depressing story you might enjoy in lieu of my usual character analysis. Happy MLK Day!

There was once a dog, a walnut, and a man. One day, the dog strolled through the park looking for another dog to shag. But the dog, being big, dirty, and hairy had trouble finding another dog. Most dogs only wanted a dog that has been properly groomed and cleaned. The dog looked around the dog park to see a recently washed golden retriever hogging up all the bitches of the eastern side of the park as they lined up for a shag. On the western side of the park was a strong looking German shepherd that dominated all the bitches that came his way. But our shaggy canine friend couldn’t get near for any overflow because they were fenced in and shunned away by men standing overhead and telling him that he’s a mutt and he can’t be used to stud.

The dog felt saddened because he was told he wasn’t a stud and he couldn’t get a shag with even the simplest of lady dogs. He went back to his bench next to the walnut and the man, curled up, and tried to sleep away his sadness.

The man then strolled through the park, looking for a reason to live. He had been contemplating suicide for at least a fortnight. The reasons were quite simple. He had lost his job of twenty years six months ago and had yet to find a new source of income. None were willing to hire a middle-aged man who had only experience sacking groceries and nothing more. His desperation only exacerbated when he was removed from his dwelling space by an ever patient landlord that had let him slip at least once or twice. But he was tired of not getting rent and tired of trying to be nice. The man was kicked to the curb just at the moment his fiancée of a relationship of ten years had approached. She handed back the ring and told him she couldn’t go through with marrying a man who’s life had lost all direction and a cock that failed to gain erection. She walked away and the man tried to catch her, but he gave up, understanding full well why she wasn’t a chase worth pursuing. She was a stubborn woman who wouldn’t listen to a man reeking of failure and misery. So he slinked away from the mother of his bastard children and into a home for displaced workers. There he had to sleep with his bum against a wall because of the serial rapist in the bed next to his.

And every day, after looking classified over once and again for a place to kick-start his life back into gear, finding only jobs that ask for experience and college education, he would go to the park on the bench by the dog and the walnut and contemplate suicide.

The walnut didn’t stroll through the park because it was a walnut. It had no legs or ability to roll on its own. Yet, somehow, it had sentience and the ability to think and reason like any one of you reading. Day by day he’d watch people walk by or dogs trying to shag and it would think how lovely would life be if it could move like the people or shag like the dogs. But it couldn’t, because it was a walnut. It was trapped in an existence of merely being there by a bench in a park next to a transient and a mutt. It hadn’t even been planted properly, meaning it would never reach its potential to become the towering oak tree it pined to be like its father and its father before him. Never getting to see the world, never getting to enjoy new experiences, and not even getting to relive the life of its predecessors. While the walnut felt for the mutt and the transient, it’s life was just as sad and miserable because of a lack of autonomy.

So the walnut merely stayed by the park bench like it had yesterday. As it had last week. As it had since it feel from the tree because it was a walnut and a walnut by a dog and a man on a bench was all it would ever be.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.