“Come on Redbeard! Let’s play!“
That’s what I always say to him. Mother would allow me to run around and play in the background after dinner some nights when the moon was out and nice and bright. I brought Redbeard with me because he was my first mate, and my best friend, we would go on adventures together. We were the swashbuckling pirates in space. I was Captain Sherlock Holmes (William is too boring for a pirate name), and my dog was just Redbeard, it sounded pirate-y already. We would spend all night outside and I would pretend that we were up there, in the sky, fighting evil buccaneer-aliens who tried to steal our treasure and territory, and occasionally helping people who were being terrorized by them. Our ship was so big and so powerful, and because we rode in space with all of the stars and planets and the moon, our ship had stardust sprinkled all over it, which made it shine and look even more magical and threatening.
"Enemies are approaching? All hands on deck, we’re going into battle!"
While I sailed the ship, Redbeard would bark if he ever spotted our enemies, the Mycroftians, they were the worst. They were big and fat, and they would push everybody around and call them names and be very controlling and mean. There were some nights where everything was calm and we could just sail around pass the constellations and the shooting stars and make wishes. I liked the Ursa Major, the name sounded nice and its shape was beautiful. Redbeard couldn’t get enough of the Little Dipper, his tail would start wagging and he would start jumping around because of his excitement. When we would start to get tired, we would just lay on the grass and stare at all the pretty stars that lit up the sky and fall asleep until mummy got us. I love the night, I love the stars, I love space, I love Redbeard.
"Don’t you love it, Redbeard? I think space is wonderful, and I’m glad that I have you to explore it with me."
But Redbeard got sick one day. Mummy told me it was cancer. I asked her why’d he have to get it and she told me that it was because dogs get sick just like humans do, they can get the same illnesses we get and they can die from them too. Redbeard was getting old, and this is how he showed his age. I cried. I wanted to know why my best friend, my only friend, had to leave me so early. She couldn’t provide an answer for me. Mycroft told me to stop crying over an animal, it was a gross expression of sentiment and that I knew he was going to die eventually. He was grounded for two weeks.
I went over to Redbeard. He was so skinny. He stopped eating just laid there all day, he didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound. He was depressed, and it made me sad to see him like that. He shouldn’t have to die like this, he shouldn’t have to die at all. Not my Redbeard. I sat down with him and I gave him gentle pets, careful not to hurt him.
"Come on Redbeard, let’s go play outside, we might even be able to see Little Dipper tonight. Please Redbeard. Let’s play pirates together."
He didn’t move and so I left him there and went to my room. I cried myself to sleep that night.
He got put down two weeks after. Nobody, not even Mycroft, could stand to see him pain like that. They made me go with them, they said that Redbeard could lay on my lap on the way over. He was so bony and limp and he whimpered every few minutes, so did I. I watched my friend, my first mate, get a mask put on him. He struggled at first, then his movements slowed and his eyes closed. Pretty soon he wasn’t moving at all. Everybody was crying, but not me.I waited until that night, to lay on the grass outside, it seemed colder than usual. I looked up at the sky, I saw the stars, the moons, the constellations. I hated them. I wanted them all gone, erased from existence. All I saw were hot balls of gas, and they were awful. So I sat there, and I deleted every single thing I knew about them, all of the happiness I felt when I once gazed at them.
Because, without Redbeard, I wasn’t a pirate in space, I wasn’t captain of anything, I wasn’t the most feared in the galaxy.
This is for 221bbcbakerstreet who gave me the idea! Thank you!
