Paranopoly

Chapter 3 : Dog

Weak sunshine bathed the gravel-covered back yard of The Lodge, a boarding kennel for dogs and small pets owned and managed by Louise Anderson. The lines around her mouth betrayed the amount of times over the last thirty years that she'd scowled, tutted, grimaced and tightened her lips in disagreement with life and it's often curious conspiracies. Today was such a day, a day when her lips went so thin and tight, they could have been mistaken for strands of DNA. Next to Louise stood a rotund delivery man wearing a set of blue all-in-one overalls, a blue peaked cap and a pair of glasses whose lenses were thicker than the windscreen of the Popemobile. He smiled a vacant smile, seemingly oblivious to anything else in the world bar his clipboard, the massive pallet of animal feed to his right and his happy thoughts.

'Six hundred tins of Mr. Fido,' he chirped, 'four hundred tins of Mr. Frolic, two t hundred tins of Mr. Jenkinson, forty bags of doggy chews, twenty sacks of fishy treats, thirty tubs of hamster flakes, twenty packets of rabbit chocolate, ten cartons of guinea pig milk and your complimentary copy of Kennels and you magazine.' Louise tentatively took the rolled up magazine she'd been offered and placed it between her knees. She then prised the clipboard and a pen from between the delivery man's stubby fingers. 'Sign here and here,' he said, pointing at two different boxes, 'and here and here', he added lifting the sheet and indicating more boxes on the page beneath.

'I don't need the hamster flakes this month.'

' – and here – '

'I said I don't need – '

' – and here.' The delivery man remained oblivious to the information Louise was trying to impart, continuing to smile and await her many signatures. Louise doubted whether he could even see her let alone hear her, and so decided to sign the papers and hand them back. 'Always a pleasure, same time next week!'

'Month,' she yapped, 'next month.'

Without acknowledgement, the driver climbed into the cab of his white truck, slammed the door with a hollow metallic thud, started the engine and drove away, tooting his horn merrily.

Louise stood in the courtyard, slouched and limp; her shoulders rolled forward, her back curved with defeat, 'Bye then.' She took a moment to inspect her surroundings. The long row of cages containing dogs stretched along the back wall of the complex. A row of sheds adorned the wall which formed a right angle with the cages. These wooden huts housed smaller pets such as rabbits, guinea pigs and a couple of chinchillas, but no hamsters. 'Harold!'

Harold appeared over Louise's left shoulder, staring into her ear and speaking with his usual lilting chirp of a voice.

'Ah Harold, could you help me mo – '

'Yes Mrs. Anderson?', he interrupted.

'Could you help me move these – '

'Right away Missus Anderson.'

' – tins into the shed', before Louise could finish her sentence, Harold had set about carrying boxes of tinned dog food into the brick storage block near the main building.

A merry tinkle, at complete odds with Louise's mood, emanated from a pocket in her beige shapeless and frumpy cardigan. She silenced her mobile phone by pressing a green button and placing it to her ear, sighing an exasperated hello as she did so.

'Hello, The Lodge boarding kennels, Louise speaking, how can I help?' A high-pitched voice twittered out of the ear-hole; Louise winced at the volume of the shrill tone, moving the phone a few centimetres from her ear in order to bear it. 'What type of animal do you have?,' Louise asked, 'Has your dog ever been locked in a small cage before?' Louise waited for an answer before continuing with the customary script she used to interrogate all potential customers, 'Is your dog used to long periods of solitude? ... Ok, our cages all have tiled floors for hygiene, fluffy blankets for comfort and the complex itself has hanging baskets with a water feature ... because it looks nice.'