Profitron contains absurd, satirical and funny short fiction. Influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut and Norm Macdonald (all lovers of SEO). Now it’s time for the news:
We love what you do for the company. We know you’ve put in weekends, made sacrifices. No no no, of course we see a future for you - a bright one. But promotions and pay rises are out of the question, given the current climate, so how do you feel about iTunes gift cards as a sign of our appreciation?
Every morning before work the couple enjoyed a coffee at their local cafe. They usually sat outside but that morning was so wet that Robyn suggested they make coffee at home and enjoy the tranquillity and energy of their living room chakra. She was thinking mainly of their dog, Brutus, who would be forced to cower outside, chained in the cold rain and cutting wind.
Lindon disagreed. This is not some cheap routine, he argued. Our morning trip to that cafe is an important pillar of our marriage, the weather merely a test of our commitment. Robyn was moved by her husband’s passion. She had no idea the routine meant so much to him.
Inside the cafe was toasty and bright compared with the stormy outside. After the couple ordered their coffees and sat down, Lindon retrieved from his briefcase a copy of the Australian Financial Review. The pages were all stuck together.
Lindon began tugging at the cover to free the contents, and it was then that the sound of whimpering grew.
Outside, chained-up in the darkness was their crying dog, and the sight of that beast freezing and in pain brought a smile to Lindon’s face for the first time in months.
They were an odd couple, Robyn and Lindon. Lindon took his coffee black while Robyn enjoyed lukewarm-weak-soy-cappuccinos-no-chocolate-in-a-mug. Lindon kept his hair short and neat while Robyn had dreadlocks. He worked in finance. She was a holistic naturopath’s assistant. How they worked remains one of the world’s great mysteries, right up there with the meaning of life and what preceded the Big Bang. But they owned the dog; they had the dog in common.
Brutus was an American pit bull terrier. Robyn bought him as a squeaking nine-week-old pup after her mother passed away - on the way home from the wake, to be specific. Lindon never wanted the dog; he is allergic. But he missed Robyn’s mother’s funeral due to a risk identification session at work, so he had little leverage (as they say in finance).
That wet morning, Brutus tried to hide from the sideways rain, wind and thunder by curling his tailbone under his belly. He also buried his chin in his muscular shoulder, but still he shook and whimpered and feared thunder as all dogs do.
Inside, Lindon stared at the dog through the glass and recalled the ruined couches, torn leather shoes and pissed-on rugs. The dog had made his life hell; Lindon had been passed over for promotion five times since Brutus came along, four since Robyn cultivated her dreadlocks.
Soon Lindon grew bored of the dog’s misery. “Honey, did you hear about the train derailment in China?” he asked.
Lindon had a certain way of speaking. He employed a measured tone as though he was seducing a client, rather than sitting opposite his wife. He was like this with everyone: brother, stranger, elderly mother. “Quite alarming, I’m afraid,” he added.
Robyn shook her head at the dog outside. As always she was not listening. “Do you think he’s okay out there? I sense an ominous presence. Don’t you?”
“Nonsense. He’s fine. No such thing as a ‘presence’. We’ve covered this.” Lindon ran his finger down the glossy page. “A dam collapsed in Mongolia. Killed two hundred people. No one talks about this on LinkedIn. I’m telling you Asia is nearly gone. Infrastructure is a lead indicator. The charts paint a harrowing vision. Gene says-”
“I’ve heard stories of poltergeists and ghosts inhabiting places,” interrupted Robyn. “I look outside and I fear this corner has been possessed. You don’t see that?”
It took a moment for Lindon to register what Robyn had said. He tuned-out when she interrupted and was instead busy pinching the end of his shirt cuff to help it sit an appropriate distance beyond his jacket sleeve. Then her words suddenly appeared, as if from another world.
“Nonsense,” he said. “Corners being possessed, no. Never. Can’t happen. No such thing as possessions, presences or poltergeists.”
One of Robyn’s dreadlocks fell into her coffee. She tapped it on the table like a drummer to dry it out, while outside a man approached Brutus from the depth of the plunging rain.
The man knelt before the dog. His mouth moved but no sound penetrated the glass.
The couple bickered over whether the stranger was an evil spirit or the victim of some ancient Labor housing policy. Their volume rose. They began talking over each other, each pointing at the AFR piece on property prices, until the man outside staggered to his feet and drove his fist down on the dog’s skull.
“What are you doing?” screamed Lindon. He hooked the man’s falling arm to stop him striking their dog again.
After a brief scuffle Lindon pushed the crazed man away and stood in front of the dog. The two men were free from the awning, so the rain pelted them as they squared off. Robyn knelt beside Brutus and caressed his worried face. There was no obvious damage, she explained.
“What are you doing?” repeated Lindon, loud so he could be heard over the thunder.
“That dog is no dog,” yelled the man.
“Get out of here or I’ll call the cops.”
“That dog is no dog.”
Though he was close, the grey man nearly disappeared in the elements. His face was sunken like a skull wrapped in butcher’s paper, and it was only when the lightning struck and the sky lit up that the man’s bruised and scabbed face burned white. His right hand twitched as pointed at the dog.
“That dog is no dog,” he said again. “I know this dog, from its past life.”
Robyn glanced up. She spoke to Lindon without talking. In response he shook his head but Robyn spoke anyway. “What do you mean, a past life?” she asked.
“Robyn, don’t,” said Lindon. He had his arms out like he was instructing traffic.
“I mean this dog is no dog. In a past life he was a man.”
“What man?”
“Robyn. It’s a lie.”
“The man… the man who raped my cousin.”
Brutus wagged his tail. He smiled and rubbed his temple against Robyn as she shielded him from the rain. They were all staring at the dog, at his cute face, his smile unchanged from the day Robyn bought him.
“That’s a lie,” she said. “That’s a filthy lie. Not my Brutus. Tell him, Lindon.”
“It’s the truth. He’s a rapist reincarnate. I’m sorry to be the ball bearing of bad news.”
“Lindon, tell him.”
“Okay okay okay,” said Lindon.
Inside the cafe, the barista and the other guests stood against the glass, watching. Lindon wiped the rain from his brow and turned.
“Listen,” he said. “I need you to listen.” He paused and again rushed a hand over his face to clear the rain. “What was the man’s name, this rapist?”
“Lindon!” cried out Robyn.
The rapist’s name was Carl Eaves. Lindon explained to the man that he would speak to the dog and find the truth. When Lindon knelt down next to Robyn, she squeezed his arm and spoke through gritted teeth. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“The quickest way to get rid of this guy,” rationalised Lindon in a whisper, “is to prove that Brutus is not Carl Eaves. Then he will leave, trust me. This is how I manage difficult stakeholders at work. You don’t fight them head on. Trust me? Good.”
Lindon took the dog by the collar and immediately began to sneeze. He wiped snot and rain on the flooding concrete and placed a hand on each of the dog’s ears. He wriggled his shoulders like he had seen Robyn do when she was channelling spirits from another realm, and began humming in a deep tone. The man in the rain stepped under the awning to watch.
“Look at me, boy,” said Lindon in a steady, deep, chant-like tone. “Are you Brutus? Are you Brutus? Are you Brutus?” Each phrase was torturously slow, methodical.
The dog’s eyes focused so intently on Lindon that the world around him evaporated and he felt no cold or brick or chain and may not have even known he was a dog, such was the calming nature of Lindon’s chant. The dog remained still. The sky flashed.
“Or…” Lindon continued. “Are you Carl Eaves?” Lindon then shook the dog’s paws and tickled under its arms. “Yes boy! Are you Carl Eaves? Rapist? Carl Eaves? Yes boy! Carl Eaves! Yes Boy! Good boy, Carl Eaves. Yes yes yes!”
A bolt of self-awareness struck the dog. He leapt into the air, barked, and wagged his tail harder. Lindon fell backwards and covered his mouth as if witnessing a barbaric mauling. Could it be that the dog was Carl Eaves, the cousin rapist? Why else would ‘Brutus’ respond in such a way?
“Oh my god,” said Lindon. “Honey, you were right - spirits are real. I never believed in all my life that-”
“Lindon,” yelled Robyn. “You’re lying. You razzed him up. I saw it.”
“No, you saw it. You saw it yourself, Robyn. The dog is a rapist, the spirit of a cousin rapist… listen, I don’t like it any more than you, but Carl Eaves-”
“It’s Brutus,” interrupted Robyn. “Brut-us. He is not some evil spirit. I know you hate-”
“I’m convinced,” interjected the strange man. “You saw the way he jumped.”
“Oh, shut your mouth. He is a dog. I’ve known him since he was nine weeks old, you idiot.”
“Honey honey honey,” replied Lindon. He stepped forward and ran his slick hands along her tie-dyed poncho. He twirled a drenched dreadlock, and extended an arm to the accuser, to let him know he had the situation under control.
“Honey, please, look at me,” he continued. “Thank you. Listen, we both know the spirit world is a dark place. You know that right? I believe you now. I’m so sorry I ever doubted you. But… you know there are chakras and retrogrades and constellations and other… things you never stop talking about, right? Right? Well, we don’t know the design of these things. We cannot predict which dogs will or will not be rapists from previous lives. When it comes to rapist dog spirits, we can only choose how we respond.”
The professional tone he had learned from Gene at work. His phrasing moved with a steady cadence, flat tone and just enough emotion to give the impression of humanity. Gene always said to be cool, not cold. Armed with such exquisite communication skills, a person can talk of cousin raping spirit dogs and financial projections without being ridiculed.
“It’s just-” muttered Robyn, uncertain like a corporate investor unfamiliar with the term ‘frontier markets.'
“I know, I know. We both loved him so much. But if there is even the smallest chance that he is Carl Eaves, the cousin rapist, then don’t we have an obligation?”
“An obligation to what?” asked Robyn, though she knew damn well.
“Mitigate the risk: to take him to the vet,” Lindon said, frowning, nodding. “To be killed by the vet, today.”
Lindon then went inside to pay for the coffees.
At the counter, the barista asked about the commotion and Lindon explained that his dog was in fact the spirit of a cousin-rapist. He needed to be put down, he explained. It is quite common for dogs to be possessed, he explained. He then outlined the next steps (the ‘battle rhythm’ of the dog’s execution), and he said this all in a soaking wet suit with a tone of sedated confidence.
“It’s all quite scientific,” summarised Lindon, who manages a frontier market ETF.
The barista nodded, shocked that he believed every word.
Outside, Robyn was saying farewell to her beloved dog. The strange man had walked away, and was last seen marching down Malvern road, punching garbage bins and calling them all Carl Eaves, which was in fact his own name.
Still at the counter, Lindon felt a sense of optimism he had not experienced in more than a decade. He always attributed his growing lethargy to getting older, to leaving his thirties behind. However, he sensed now it was the dog’s fault, or maybe his wife’s. They had not only stopped him gaining a promotion for nine years, but had robbed him of any zest for life.
Well, not anymore. The future was now a vibrant frontier, a red line of possibility that he could ride like a horse upwards, onwards. The image brought a wide, unprofessional smile to his face. All at once he looked drunk and stunned.
“Say, I have a question,” he said to the barista. From his briefcase Lindon retrieved a zip lock bag full of dozens, maybe a hundred, white cards. “Do you accept iTunes gift cards?”
“No,” said the barista, “I’m not insane.”
As always, please share this with a friend. Just copy the URL or press the below share button and spread it far and wide. I really appreciate that kind of support.
Also, check me out on Instagram where I share stories and updates:
Follow me on Twitter where I engage in witty back and forth with the broader public:
Facebook also has updates and additional content.
Profitron contains absurd, satirical and funny short fiction and prose. Literary influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut and Norm Macdonald. That’s all we have time for, folks.
I have a meeting with a Lindon later this week. Now I can’t wait - thank you.
This was so entertaining. Love 👏👏it