'Loopy, don't you go being no mudpuppy now,' Princess Lickety snarls at him. She's one sleek robobitch at the Howling Club. 'Us dogness stick together, you catch the ball?'
Catching the ball real good, because dog-to-dog being his only intersnout since the worms came calling, and two days later Dog J-Loop sauntering out of the Town Hall, quite merry on the end of Mistress string, freshly laundered brain in his head. No worms, no nothing. J-Loop feel dog-ambient! Pair of them set up street-camp, J-Loop adopting perfect begging mode: front paws crossed just so, plaintive look in dewy eyes, fur raised in bristles against Manchester rain. Mistress starting out her melancholic selling-chant: 'Please help the homeless! Buy the Big Biscuit. Only fifty-four pounds!' And it's exactly now that J-Loop gets the calclass="underline" yearning voice inside his brain. This no worm-sickness, this no itching; voice being strong and passionate. Constant hungering.
J-Loop goes off-string. Tugging string loose from his Mistress fingers. Running free, desperate cry chasing but no contest. Like, going weird in greyhound style!
Rain-drenched and guided, stranger's voice pointing the nose-way, fifty minutes later J-Loop arrives in Southly Poshtown. Voice making the dog scratch his claws against the front door of a big manhouse. Young girl opens the door, takes one look at J-Loop, starts to scream: 'Noodles! You've come home!'
Noodles? thinks J-Loop: Who the fuck this Noodles?
'Mummy, Noodles has come back to us!' young girl shouts back into the house, and then she's dragging J-Loop inside behind her, tugging hard on loose string.
Seven weeks, J-Loop lives a canine-prince of a Poshtown life: warm blankets, juicy steaks, ultra-flea powder, his very own platform boot to chew on. Each day at play with the young girl, and swallowing lots of good Whistle-bone but making only sniffing visits to intersnout. Not knowing what to say. Each night sleeping by the embers of dying fire.
Each night to dream a doggy-dream.
To let the floating voice of Noodles give free howl to final moments; the shivering to stillness of canine brain inside the Town Hall doggy-bath. Each and every night, the repeated death of the robo-poshdog inside him: J-Loop feeling possessed by story. How Noodles had died during his high-class head-clean; how a bone-whisper of his doggy-mind keeping alive inside the kennel-waves. Like embers of dying fire, yes? How Noodles had waiting and waiting to do before J-Loop came for his clean-up: another black robodog! Exact same Labrador model! Slightly downmarket but no time for choices. How Noodles's pedigree patterns had slithered through the waves, straight into J-Loop's brain.
Seven weeks passing by, this nightmare stupid dog inside of J-Loop, never leaving him no peace! Seven weeks, the stupid games of second-rate Mistress; cloying warmth, wet meat, platform boot leaving too many sequins in the mouth. Oh-so-tight leather collar around his chafing neck! Too much. Too chafing much! Seven weeks then J-Loop gets up one night, snuffles around twisting backdoor key in front paws, full robo-mode.
Door against superdog. No wailing contest!
Running the streets of Manchester, old-time memories: rain and piss and rancid cats to chase. Noodles howling upside his head, demanding his whereabouts. 'Catch this ball, Noodle-brain!' Dog-to-dog intersnout talking. 'J-Loop in charge of the two-pack.'
Noodles only a growling at the edges then. Belly up.
Back to the old ground, early morning: there's the old Mistress, newly issued robodog on the end of her latest string. J-Loop feeling down to dirt from the sniffing of this but still making a keening goodbye from across the way. Got my own trip to make, Mistress. Sell some Biscuit! Hoping this got through. Then trotting over to Howling Club to find the Princess Lickety, tied to a table leg. 'You want to go off-string, good robobitch?' snarls J-Loop.
Well weird and travelling. The three of them, J-Loop and the Princess and the Noodles inside, running away from Manchester's clutches. Paw to paw to paw they scamper, outlanding to where the smell of fresh meat plays above the city's gates. Sniffing at freedom's tang, making homeless home beneath the sparkle stars.
You catch this ball yet?
This little story being told by J-Loop himself, his ravenous dogself.
DUB WEIRD
THE CHARISMA ENGINE
Emerson and Scott's Complete Tables of Charismatic Value: 1895 to 2105 records the personality ratings of all the many thousands of people who have scored over 1,575 jaggers, for the years stated in the title. The copy I possess has a natural tendency to fall open at the pages corresponding to the year 1999, this being the period of history I had studied for my final paper at university.
I had, for that paper, concentrated on the more well-known personalities, my work being a comparative analysis of the various examinations already done. For this, the first project of my leisure, I had a more ambitious notion: to undertake the study of a figure as yet untouched by the academic hand. Consequently, on the occasion I speak of, it was towards the lower end of the charismatic scale that I made my perusal. What governing, overarching mind guided my eye towards the name I eventually chanced upon, I cannot say; but guided I was, of that I now have no doubt. I give here the exact entry:
LUCINDA TONGUEBRIGHT (1978-1999)
vocalist, composer, musician, actress
charisma rating (estimated): 1,576 jaggers
It seemed a dreadfully thin summation of a life, even for a person who died so young; twenty-one years old, when she left this world. And such a low score; why, only two less jagger points and she would have been unlisted. It goes without saying that I had never heard mention of Lucinda Tonguebright before this moment. One fact was immediately obvious: she had achieved her entry in the same year as her death - 1999. A quick study of the preceding years confirmed my suspicions: her very death had produced the interest in her life. This is often the case, especially if the death be a mysterious or notorious, or a cruel one.
Perhaps it was the name; the wonderful name - a singer bright of tongue. Perhaps it was the way she hovered so, barely on the edge of being remembered at all. Whatever the reason, I found myself strongly drawn to this young woman born over one-hundred-and-fifty years ago. I could only hope she was suitably, so to speak, unexplored. Moving quickly to my computing engine, I entered the candidate's name and her year of birth into my expert locator. You may imagine my dismay to find that an archaeology had already been performed. A researcher whose name was unfamiliar to me - Professor Alexander Bringhome - had already examined the archives for this very same singer. It seemed I would have to choose again from my Emerson and Scott.