Ian hated dogs. They’ve always been causing troubles. He could glance quickly at his scars and remembered — or, more likely, read like a story — all his meetings with dogs. He’s recalled this meetings many times and, honestly, didn’t want to do this anymore. But the scars were too eager to catch his sight — as they hadn’t brought him pain enough. So he continued wandering through the streets and cursing every time he looked down on his legs.
Someone on his neighborhood looked like a god damn dog, with messy black fur and widely — and wildly — opened eyes. They were blue, and he came out of the blue, and everything became so blue from that very second. Yes, every single backyard, leafy alley — every curve of the big, rough city was now filled with this incredible color. It was bright, even toxic, but Ian, to his amazement, couldn’t remember how it had been before.
Ian had stormy relationships with dogs.
Mickey had stormy relationships with everyone.
Mickey, with all his rudeness and insensitivity, which covered him like a shell, hiding soft core, reminded a half-wild dog. Not really a wolf, but already too far from a dog. Strange, cheeky beast, reckless enough to shout at a person, who was twice the size of it. Mickey had stormy relationships with nearly everyone — sometimes it seemed that he literally caused a huge, violent storm, which hit Chicago. It was cruel, it freaked out even Mickey’s brothers, despite they were most of the time high as kites. The storm threatened to tear Chicago apart, chew all streets and spit it on a warm grass somewhere in the suburbs. Mickey hardly could realize his strengths — actually, he wasn’t used to think about anything for a long time. He felt something and trusted his feelings, because they were real, they were inside his body: on the top of his head, on the tips of his toes and somewhere near heart, threatening to break into. The shell should collapse one day — finally, it did.
A fire broke out suddenly, and it came out as a surprise to Mickey, because there was no fire actually. Something inside him had changed dramatically, and he was feeling consequences now — how freaking intense they were! Something was burning, hurting and bursting with unspeakable feeling, and he wasn’t even sure it was a feeling. He had never experienced such thing before and had no clue what it could be. To be honest, Mickey’s feeling weren’t outstanding: there were a couple of them, including hunger and anger. And now the whole world was painted in a reddish desperation, and it didn’t remind any of his usual feelings — except fear and pain, maybe. There were lots of them. Tons of heavy, grey fear and millions of sharp, needle-nosed little pains that developed into one big never-ending pain. It changed its shape depending on how much Mickey was into it — sometimes he nearly drowned and it became calm, even reassuring, and sometimes he managed to float, turning pain into slow treacherous liquid, that filled the whole world around Mickey.
And Ian looked on this struggle and saw nothing except the blue color.
Mickey’s eyes were filled with blueness and every splash of it looked like a nervous sea waves were rushing each other, determined to get to the shore. Mickey — azure bay, half-wild dog came from the marine foam. Every move with nervous sharpness, every word like a provocation, and Ian would have lied if he had said he wasn’t charmed with all this unrestrained, painfully-filled soul.
Ian’s life was tough and uncomfortable: sudden dreams about West-point, self-motivation, eagerness — this feeling weren’t the most convenient, but they pushed him farther. The world was a huge desert: sand, melting because of enormous amount of sun and sun, proud of how much warmth it could give. However, it wasn’t warmth at all, rather heat, dryness, which left no other choice except looking desperately for some kind of oasis. Something blue and fresh, promising safety from this snide everlasting summer, which poisoned even the concept of this season, meant to be light and joyful. But there wasn’t anything except scorching, thick air, lazy lizards and hot wind, which smirked while hitting in a back. There was a hyena with wide goofy smile, hanging around and barking up the wrong trees with some purpose. This hyena didn’t have enough courage to come closer to the freckled boy, and kept watching over him. It was too inquisitive and once noticed how this boy loathed the sun, wanted to know the reasons of this hatred. Day by day the hyena was watching how the redhead kinsman of the sun was proclaiming a war to the sun and how they were fighting with each other with no result, because they both have the same power, although neither of them could admit it.
And above all of this was an eternal sky, b l u e, silent, awaiting. The water had run away from the desert and had been soaked into the thick silk, nailed with the stars, many years before in this desert appeared a boy, who hated the sun and a hyena, who admired this hatred. So, the water turned into a sky or a sky was filled with water, and it was shaking, sending millions of tiny waves and worrying, worrying about every single wave, because down there was insuperable heat and incredibly sharp teeth of loath.
And one day the sky fell down.
One day — Ian could read it, as usual, from his new scar — he met a dog.
And for the first time he decided not to run away.
