CHAPTER 5
1041 Words
When Logan opened his eyes again he was in the park, lying on the ground in a patch of soft grass, and Thomas was sitting on a bench close by. He blinked, and blinked again, squinting against the bright glare of the sun, but he was sure his eyes didn’t deceive him. Logan tried to get up but his body didn’t do what he told it to, and when he tried to call out he could only produce a funny whine, almost like a groan or a muffled bark… unlike any sound he’d ever been able to make before.
“Before you do anything,” Thomas said as he bent closer to him, “you need to listen to me. You wouldn’t have believed me before now, but I’m something like a modern day wizard, and as punishment for making your judgment without getting to know the real Pamela, I’ve changed you into a furry little brown and black dog. But magic, as you might call it, well, it doesn’t always work smoothly and definitely not as you might have planned it. It’s not always kind and gentle that way. Just like life I guess you’d say.”
Logan couldn’t make sense of what his friend was talking about, but slowly the reality of what his friend was saying dawned on him, and he took in his brown paws and the dog sounds that came from his throat when he tried to talk. He still felt strange, having to orientate himself in his current form.
It’d been several minutes yet he still didn’t feel right at home in this new body. He felt dizzy, disoriented… And weird… for lack of a better word, he just felt weird! What is happening to me?
“You don’t know anything at all about Pamela.” Thomas went on. “You’re selfish and clueless and have never really cared about her problems. So here’s your new job, you have to go find her, and find out more about her. Until you can prove that your reaction to who she is, who she really is, is justified, you’ll stay just like you are right now.”
Then Thomas got up, but before he left he told Logan one last thing, “Alright kid, the only way you can reverse this is by proving that you will make sacrifices for her if it comes right down to it. If you don’t, you’ll both be done for.” Then he turned and left, leaving Logan all alone in the park.
As he lay there, new senses flooded Logan’s mind… smells he had never noticed before and sounds he’d never heard. He lay there for a few moments, trying to make sense of everything, trying to stay calm… until he realized that nothing was going to change if he didn’t do something. Anything.
So he managed to get it together enough to sit up on his haunches and look about the park from a completely new vantage point. And then a natural urge that he didn’t have before came upon him and told him which way to go to find her, and a loyalty to her overcame him. So he started walking and after a few steps that changed to a run.
All the new things he was now encountering… overwhelming would have been an understatement. But he kept on moving anyway… he had to find her! In the middle of the city square he stood, admiring the sheer size of everything around him… Past the new smells, new sounds, barking, cat… whoooh, that was a tough one because he really wanted to find out more about them.
But he couldn’t call her – obviously! And he couldn’t ask for directions… even if he wanted to… so he just kept on moving toward his intended target like a dowser searching for underground water. He was on her trail.
Hours passed… but he still had no idea if he was closer to finding her or not, but some unknown sixth sense seemed to be leading him to her – he had no idea how. Then the wind changed and suddenly he caught a scent, drifting across the streets on the breeze, and reaching deep into his soul. He breathed in deeply, and felt almost giddy at the scent.
Then he became aware of another problem that was starting to slowly rear it’s head – he was hungry. Not long after that the need to eat soon overruled the search for Pam. He was in search of something to fill the dark hole in his belly.
Sniff, sniff, sniff… he smelled the air and the ground looking for something to eat. But he kept on moving too. He started tasting new things on his mission just in case they might be edible… grass… nah… piece of unwrapped candy… yes… orange peel… ick… wood chips… nah… earthworm… surprisingly, not bad… then finally, a few loose french fries. Yum! And at that moment he smelled something new and exciting. Something that smelled heavenly – and the scent was getting stronger.
It’s some sort of perfume, he gathered, because he’d never smelled anything as sweet before, but it numbed his mind and he could only drink it in. Nothing else seemed to matter at that time! He continued to move on in the direction of the new scent and then he found the source – an overturned trash can filled with bags! Score!
The bags strewn about the street were all tied up but the plastic bags were no problem for Logan’s sharp claws and teeth. He sniffed about the treasure to find the exact thing he caught a whiff of a few blocks away… and then he found it. A steak bone wrapped in tinfoil! Perfect!
With an enthusiasm he hadn’t had since he was a kid, he ripped open the trash bag, located the steak bone and removed the tin foil in seconds. Then he sat down licking his prize and finished chewing it up in minutes.Yum! he thought to himself. That was a good start but he was still hungry – and now thirsty too, but with a good treat in his belly he moved on, pulled by an invisible desire to find Pam. Call it doggie GPS if you’d like
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