The Talking Dog

Complete happy memories are getting harder and harder for me to dig up, you guys. Just a warning. :S

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The ice cream truck was the highlight of my summers when I was younger. Every afternoon I’d keep my ears peeled for its telltale jingle, quarters and one dollar bills in my pockets simply begging to be spent. When it entered my neighborhood, my sister and I would dash out the door with all the other kids and eagerly crowd around the pink van. I always got the Spongebob popsicle with the gumball eyes, but I always made sure I had a couple quarters...

Three.

“We won’t get caught,” she said for the thousandth time, a smile dancing on her lips. “Stop being such a goody-goody.”

“Shut up. I’m a damn good kid,” I said. “I haven’t gotten in trouble at this school yet, and I'd like to keep it that way.”

“We won’t get in trouble. I know what I’m doing. You can trust me.”

“Trust isn’t the issue. The aides are.”

“Miranda.” She looked at me. “We. Will. Not. Get. Caught.”

“Yes we will.”

“No we won’t. Just come on.”

I paused. “Do you think they have strawberry milkshakes?”

“We’d have to go there to...

Two.

I don’t remember how old I was when he first hit me. Maybe six, seven, eight. I don’t remember what I’d done to provoke him. I don’t even see this memory from the first person point of view. I see it like I’m a moviegoer, watching the scene unfold with horrorstruck eyes, like I’m an intruder in someone else’s life.

His face is twisted in anger, his lip curled up in disgust at me. Spit flies from his mouth as he yells, waving his hands all over the place. I don’t remember what he was saying. The movie is a silent one.

But his mouth is moving and he’s yelling. And yelling....

I figure, this is a spot about me, right? So I should probably tell you a bit about myself. Except, I’m not a fan of straight up facts. I’m not going to sit here and bore you by telling you what the weather was like the day I was born. So I think I’m gonna share a bit of myself with you in story form. Just little bits of memories I have. They won’t be in order and they won’t always be important. But all these memories have made me who I am. Read them or don’t, care or not, here we go.

One.

“I want that one.”

“The gray one sleeping in the corner?”

“No, the one next to him.”...