Attempting to extend sympathy to my younger self via self insert fiction.
I looked up from the lunchbox on my lap towards the source of the sudden loud voice, standing four or so feet away from me was a… dog? He stood on two legs, an eager look on his face. I looked around, none of the other kids were nearby.
"Hello?" I said back, a little confused.
"My name is Paul! What is your name?" The dog replied, both in an oddly formal tone of voice and… loudly, even though he was close enough to grab.
"My name's Bradley." I said, and went back to my PB&J.
"How old are you, Bradley?" asked Paul, in that same babyish but too-formal tone, almost like a robot.
"I'm eleven." I replied, without looking up.
"I'm ten!" He said back. "Nice to meet you!"
Several seconds passed, and he didn't move or look away. I realized he was waiting for me to say something.
"Nice to meet you too, Paul." His tail twitched as I said that, but he quickly moved his paw behind him to hold it in place until it settled. "Sorry," He said, before asking another question. "What do you like to do?"
His awkward storybook-speaking was offputting to me, but no one ever talked to me at recess, especially not completely out of nowhere like this. I answered his question, "I like playing Smash Bros," but I don't know why I thought of that first. I didn't really feel like finishing my lunch, I started to pack it away for later.
"What's that?" He said back. Was that a joke? He looked curious.
"Uh… it's a game, you can play as different Nintendo characters and fight each other." I waited for him to respond, but he was still listening. "You can uh… you can be Sonic."
"That's really cool!" He said. "Can I sit next to you?"
"Hm? Oh, okay, I guess." I replied. The dog's tail instantly sprung to life, and he once again moved his paw to stop it. "Sorry," he said, and moved swiftly to sit on the bench next to me, a bit closer than I thought he would. He looked up towards me like he wanted me to keep talking, or… it looked like he was looking at the top of my head, I wasn't sure.
Instead of explaining Smash Bros anymore, I asked a question myself to take the pressure off. "What do you like to play?" Paul blinked and his ears perked up. "I like Marble Blast Gold!" He almost yelped out, before drawing back. "But… shhh, don't tell anyone. I'm not supposed to talk about it."
That didn't make any sense. "Huh? What does that mean?" I asked.
"It's the best game ever, you like… you roll, and you have to… like, you have to get to the end. Uh." He stammered. "But I'm not… I'm not allowed to play it anymore, my teachers said I'm too obsessed."
"That's bullshit." I spat.
"Yeah!!" He yelled, leaping up onto his haunches, tail wagging up a storm, until he noticed again, and pressed his paw to stop it. "Sorry." he said.
"Why are you doing that?" I asked.
"Stopping your tail." I pointed to his butt. "Aren't you like… a dog, or something?"
Paul cocked his head like I asked him a really stupid question. "Yeah? Why." He said, carefully.
We stared at each other for another couple of seconds. I didn't know how to word my questions without sounding awkward. "I've met a lot of… dogs, and wagging tails is pretty normal." I felt insane saying it out loud.
"Well I'm special!" Paul beamed. "I can talk, I can stand on two legs!" He got up and stood upon the bench, barely reaching eye level with me. "I'm in a class for special dogs only." He bumped a fist on his chest.
"Oh… okay." I said, not really understanding. I guess the rules were different for dogs that talk. It felt weird watching him do that though, and saying sorry for it too. "Are special dogs… not supposed to wag?" I asked.
"Yeah. No wagging." He replied. "'Cus humans don't wag."
"But humans don't have tails in the first place." I looked behind myself to check. "So you don't actually know if humans would wag or not, right?" I was getting seriously weirded out by this conversation, but I just kinda kept going. "How'd you learn to talk, anyways?" I asked, Paul looked like he was processing what I said very slowly.
"Like I said, I'm special." Paul repeated. "I'm learning how to make it disappear, like everyone else. First I gotta learn how to keep it still, though, so the magic works."
"Magic?" I said back to him. I mean, it wasn't all that weird compared to meeting a talking dog, but the word still threw me off.
"Yeah, lookit!" The dog hopped off the bench, hunched over with his back facing me, and started screaming like he was about to go super saiyan. I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking at, I was too startled. I might have been imagining things, but I think I saw his tail slowly retracting into his body like a lazy snake.
"Paul! What the fuck are you doing??" I shouted, but instead of responding, Paul just… went silent and flopped onto his side. I quickly rushed over, yelling "Are you okay? What just happened?" I looked over his body, flat on the asphalt. His tail had grown all the way back and… his body shrunk. His head was halfway tucked into his shirt like a turtle. His paws barely poked out of his sleeves, pointing directly forward from his body. He didn't look like a kid anymore, he looked like a dog that someone stuffed into some kid's clothes.
After a second, I thought it wouldn't hurt to poke him. "Paul? Recess is almost over." I poked at his chest, and he rolled onto his back limply. I suddenly felt silly trying to talk to him, like I was trying to reason with a pet. I tried a different approach, I clapped my hands and rapped on my knees. "Hey! Up! Food!"
Paul's eyes shot open, and he sneezed, before wiggling his legs to right himself. He took an instant and a half to realize where he was, and he suddenly cowered, looking straight at me, shivering. "Hey, what's wrong?" I whispered. He looked side to side, back at his own doggish body, and back to me. He blinked, looking like he was about to run away.
"No, no, it's okay." I tried to be reassuring, I'd never had a dog before so I didn't really know what I was doing. I almost forgot that I'd just been talking about Smash Bros with him. "Uh… do you like granola bars?" His ears perked up, and his tail swayed, his new… anatomy making it hard to reach back and stop it this time. I grabbed my backpack from behind me and rummaged through it for leftovers, I got the other of the two bars inside the wrapper, the one I didn't eat, and held it out in front of me. Paul approached me slowly, his nose twitching. "Can you… eat this, even?" I asked, as he sniffed the crumbly rectangle. He licked it soon after, and started nibbling and snarfing after that. I watched carefully, scared to make any sudden moves.
Paul looked up at me again, and I noticed his eyes were a little different. More definition, like I could tell a little more what he was feeling. His new eyes looked concerned, like he was waiting for me to do something bad. He reached up with a paw, it was looking a bit more like a hand now. I let go, and he held the bar himself as he munched away, sitting plainly on his knees.
"What was that all about?" I asked.
"Maghic." The dog said through a full mouth.
"That was magic?" I replied. "I saw your tail shrink, I'm pretty sure."
Paul swallowed. "How much?"
I thought back, the image was still clear in my head. "Like… barely at all. A couple inches?"
"Aw…" He looked disappointed in himself.
We sat in silence for a bit, but there was a question I wanted to ask. "Why do you want to get rid of your tail? Like… that looked painful."
"Mrs. Millie said I can go to the regular class if I can turn human," the talking dog said, proudly.
"You're pretty bad at that." I chuckled, reaching out to ruffle his ears without thinking. Paul looked like he was about to take it personally, but suddenly lost his train of thought as my hand touched his head. "Bwuhhf…" He woofed under his breath, his tail twitched and his paws lost their thumbs again. I quickly pulled my hand back, "Sorry! I didn't…" Paul's eyes took a second to form together again, and he looked right at me, "That wasn't fair." he whined, but his tail was still wagging.
"You really are a dog!" I said, glancing sneakily behind him. Paul followed my gaze to his own tail, yelped, and quickly pressed it down with both paws.
"Oh, come on, stop it." I joked. "It's psyching me out, it looks like it hurts when you hold your tail in place like that."
Paul turned his head back at me. "It doesn't… hurt," he said, slowly and surely.
"Hm. Whatever you say." I got up and went back on the bench. After I turned around to sit down, Paul was already running towards me. I didn't have any time to think before he bounded into my lap and butted his head into my chest while his tail went crazy. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but he was pretty small, I got it back in just a second. Paul yipped and barked, maybe there were some normal words in there too, but I couldn't understand it. This is where I realized he wasn't a very special dog after all, I think he was just normal.
I scratched behind his head and stroked his back through those baggy clothes, and this time he didn't mind. He might have been crying, it was hard to tell, I didn't really know what dog crying looked like. Eventually, he settled down. I couldn't feel his shoulders anymore, he seemed in danger of falling out of his shorts if he wasn't careful. I had a dog in my lap, an extremely normal dog. He stretched his body up and rested his head on my shoulder. "I like you, Bradley." He said, a little too slowly, and a little too loudly. I didn't know what to say to that, he barely knew me. This was all very weird. "You're a good dog." I said back, just because it felt right.
I could feel Paul's body shaping up into a more human posture again as he regained composure. He let go, turned to the side, and sat down on the bench next to me again, staring at his paws in his lap. I leaned over, "You okay?" I asked. He didn't answer, he just put his paw on my wrist and started twirling the hair under my sleeve.
I quickly jerked my hand away and covered the hairy skin. "Don't look at that!" I snapped.
"You have fur too!" Paul yelled.
"No, no, that's hair. I'm just…" I didn't want to explain, it was too embarrassing. I looked like I had my dad's arms, I hoped that no one would see. "It's a condition."
"Oh. Okay." Paul stared into the distance again. We sat in silence for another couple awkward seconds before the bell rang.
"Bye, Bradley." the dog said, scampering off.
"Bye, Paul." I waved after him, being sure to hold my sleeve up with my other hand.
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