Chapter 36:// Digging up

 

Aibo opened his eyes and then licked his balls. He was in a new house but he liked it there. The golden man had interesting odours, all sunburned skin and that smelly pond with bad water in it.

Aibo liked the golden man, he was nice to him and played with him on the floor. The smellscape also contained the woman. Aibo didn’t like the woman much. She was kicking him away all the time but Aibo didn’t know why. The woman always gave away the mating smells and Aibo simply wanted to get his nose closer, but he was always kicked away.

Aibo slurped the water the golden man had put in his tray and felt nice. Everything was great. Now Aibo needed to get to work, the yellowheads needed him. Aibo took care of the yellowheads, if he wasn’t there, something might happen to them.

Aibo didn’t want anything to happen to them.

Aibo licked the golden man’s foot for goodbye and went to the door. It was closed. Aibo didn’t know how doors worked. He whimpered for a while but the golden man didn’t come.

His front feet felt weird. A black fur was on them, Aibo licked and licked till his tongue hurt but it didn’t come off. Finally Aibo was bored and let the hard, black fur where it was.

Everything was great.

His front feet reached up and touched the cold thingy at the door. Aibo didn’t know why his feet were doing that but he pushed himself up anyway.

The door opened, and new smells came in!

Everything was great.

Aibo ran down the corridor, past an old woman who shooed him away with her cane, out the door and into the street.

Now Aibo needed to get to work. He sniffed the air, taking note of the hundreds of odours in the smellscape outside.

He ran down the corner, and sniffed again.

He crossed the street, found a bus stop and waited.

People came and went, buses too, but Aibo waited. Some of the people were nice, they threw pieces of their lunch to Aibo and he licked their hands to thank them.

Aibo put his head down on the grass next to the bus stop.

Then he jerked up, metaphorically slapping himself. How could he forget such a thing?

He walked around the place, peeing on every lamp-post, every car tire and every tree he could see. Then he was done, and felt nice.

Everything was great.

Then he put his head down again, and waited.

 

The smell he was waiting for eventually showed up. He ran to it and found the fat man. His boots were hard like metal on their tips, so Aibo made sure to stay clear of them, but the smell was definite. He followed the fat man to the bus stop. The fat man petted him.

The bus came and the fat man took it. Aibo jumped in the bus and was off to work.

 

Aibo strode off the bus after the fat man and he was excited. The construction site was a mess of smells, oil, burnt metal, dirt, coffee, sweat. He ran towards the yellowheads, they couldn’t start working without him. He rubbed his nose in every one and they petted him.

Everything was great.

Now they could go to work. Aibo would take care of them.

His front feet led him towards a big metal house. It was the house the yellowheads lived. They came out of it every morning and went back to it at the end of every workshift.

His feet took him around the metal house, and Aibo sniffed at the pants people had left inside. He’d smelled most of them when his feet pulled him close to the pants of a man who had cancer.

He put his snout in cancer-man’s pants and bit into a white card. The card wasn’t food, and Aibo didn’t know why his front feet would want such a thing, but he carried it anyway.

He went out the metal house and his feet brought him to a van. His feet wanted him to get in the van but Aibo needed to perform his duty first.

Aibo walked around the van, peed on every tire meticulously, and then, satisfied with his work, jumped in the back of the van.

He reached up, and let the white card fall out of his mouth on a table that was one with the van.

Funny that! A car with a table in it! What would those humans think of next?

He was about to sit back and relax a bit, but his front legs jerked him up again and pushed the white card around the table. It was a funny game, so Aibo scratched the white card around.

At some point, the table bleeped and the front legs relaxed.

Aibo put his head down and just sat there.

Everything was great.

The monitor flashed in front of his eyes, with abstract shapes and odourless images. He stared at them for a while but then he got bored and chased his tail.

The flashes stopped and his front feet pulled him up again. They swung hard at the white card and threw it on the dirt, out the van. Then Aibo got out of the van, took a dump on top of the card, and covered it up with dirt cause he was a gentleman.

Then he went back to the yellowheads to resume work.

Everything was great.