By Jon Moray
This story was first published online by Twisted Endings in March 2014, and also inspired the artwork on the magazine cover. As you can probably guess, the theme has a twisted ending. The title also has a double meaning. I was excited to write this story because my favorite TV show of all time, The Twilight Zone, featured several episodes with a twist. Enjoy!
I tried to warn you, Master Arthur. I tried to warn you of Mother Nature’s rude uninvited guest, the tornado. You wouldn’t listen to my sharp pleas. You scoffed at my animated movements, frantically motioning you to seek safe shelter. Your dumb, drunken replies were only for me to get you more beer. Some sense of humor you have, Master. How funny it was to your drinking buddies when they ordered me back and forth, up and down the basement stairs to get trivial things to entertain them with.
You must’ve forgotten I have the sense. I have the gift to see ahead into the future. That six pack must’ve clouded your judgment. I saw it coming hours before it hit. Hours before your friends’ arrival to your alcohol loaded shindig. You just told me to shut up and leave you alone. Maybe your mind was on the football championship game. Maybe it was because you bet 500 dollars on Dallas. Whatever it was, you chose to ignore my warnings.
Nice friends you have, Master Arthur. Two of them deadbeats, one a cokehead and the other on probation. Why did you allow them to treat me like scum? If I wasn’t enduring their tasteless insults, I was dodging chips and nachos hurled at me. Not that you seemed to mind. It was painfully obvious you found comic relief in their badass wannabe behavior. If only you knew how much it hurt me. You would’ve, if you weren’t so wasted every time they visited. Sometimes I wished your team would lose so I wouldn’t have to endure putting up with their antics for another playoff game.
You laughed at the roar of the storm sounding like a locomotive racing through a station. You and your friends chose to let the booze entice your manhood as the twister encroached upon your four-bedroom Spanish styled mini-mansion that you inherited from your dearly departed folks. You and your stupid friends chose to foolishly ride out the storm outside on the screened-in back porch, even when the pool chairs went flying into the back of the house. Ignorance is bliss, until you are catapulted ten feet off the ground, through the pool screen and into your neighbor’s house by way of their arched dining room window. Your friends were tossed around in every direction like kids flying off a merry-go-round. It would’ve been funny under different and lighter circumstances.
As for me, I sought refuge under the dining room table with the chips bowl protecting my head. I lived to tell the tale amid all of the structural damage, unlike the cokehead and one of the deadbeats. I hope you pull through, although, judging by the velocity of your flight, I have my doubts.
Master Arthur, you must know, when you were sober you were a pleasure to serve and that is why I never left you. How could I? I am man’s best friend. I’m just a loyal golden retriever named Gofer and as I sit lapping at the brew your ex-con friend so comically left for me in my bowl, I can reflect on my true feelings for all of you idiots. I feel sad and sorry for you, Master Arthur. You meant well…most of the time. As for your friends, well, I hope they go where they deserve. I guess what they say is true, every dog has its’ day…or is it the beer talking?
Moray Writes 