Stories from the sky

Chapter 1 - The Song

"A very dog-like thing to do."

Once long ago, there was a man. He had lived his whole life as a farmer. There is nothing this man wouldn't do for his family, which included his wife and two daughters. Part of his family was also a dog. The dog was an old stray who had stumbled across into the man's barn to get away from terrible weather. When the man first saw the dog, you would think that he would scare it off right away, since the man had plenty of mouths to feed as it was. However, the man just looked at the dog and said, "if you want to stay with me and my family, you too have to carry your weight."

With that, the man let the dog stay in his barn. The man had decided to take care of the dog and the stray immediately became a part of the family.

As the man would do his chores around the farm, the dog would always accompany him. Every day, the man and the dog went the edge of the lake to get water, and every day the dog would bark furiously at the lake, as if he was mad at it. This went on for a while and by the time the leaves on the trees and bushes turned yellow and started falling to the ground, the man and the dog would – as always - go to the lake to get water, and once again the dog would bark at the lake, almost like a warning. Today, however, the man would get very annoyed with the dog for barking so much, when there was nothing to see, and the man scolded his dog, "bad dog. Stop barking at the water! It's only water."

The man was so annoyed that he could barely breathe. It wasn't the dog he was really annoyed with, and he instantly felt sorry for taking it out on the dog who never strayed from his side. To the man's surprise, the dog immediately stopped barking after the man's outburst and turned to look at him with the most intelligent eyes the man had ever seen and quietly wondered if the dog's eyes had always looked like that.

"One day soon, a storm will come." The dog said to the man. As the man stood still by the edge of the lake like a statue, the dog continued, "the water will rise, and everyone will drown. But there is a way out for you, the man who kindly took in an old stray without a second thought and immediately called it a part of your family. You can save yourself and your family by building a raft, but first you will need to sacrifice me. You must throw me into the water." The dog said without hesitation. Of course, the man was not happy with what the dog had just said, and he quickly forgot that dogs don't talk. The man reacted with anger and confusion, "that's terrible! I would never drown my friend!". The man thought for sure, that the dog was lying. The man kept arguing, that the dog could join himself and his family on the raft, that he would build to survive the storm. The dog cut the man off, and said, "If you don't believe me, look at the scruff of my neck. I'm already dead."

The man grabbed the scruff of the dog's neck and saw that the dog's skin and fur was already coming apart. Underneath was nothing but bones. After a few moments of the man trying to come up with another solution, he realised that it would be pointless if the dog was already dead as opposed to his family, who he could still safe from a horrible fate.

So, with tears in his eyes, the man said goodbye and thank you to the annoying skeleton dog and tossed it in the water, where it promptly sank.

Afterward, the man would begin to build the raft for his family right away and the raft was done just in time. When the horrible storm and flood came, the man and his family survived. Without their annoying skeleton dog.

Years after the storm had come and gone, the man and his family had settled down, built their new home and farm on the top of a small hill. At the foot of one side of the hill, was where most of the water from the flood had ended up and was drained. The man one day heard sounds from the other side of the hill – like thousands of people laughing and dancing – and the man raced to the see what was going on, excited to see if the sounds came from other people who might have survived the storm all those years ago. As the man got to the top of the hill, alas, down below he saw nothing except for bones littering the ground – thousands of skeletons from all the people who had sadly lost their lives in the flood or in the aftermath. The man realised it was the ghosts of the dead, who had been dancing. That was the sounds he had heard.

Sacrificing yourself to save your family seemed like a noble thing – a very dog-like thing – to do.