The thieves took everything except the dog. Of course there was a good reason for it. The dog was armed.

“What the hell were you thinking? Our stuff. They took all our stuff. What kind of watchdog are you, anyway?”

The small, cigar smoking mutt in the body armor took another pull from his fifth of Jack Daniels. “Back off, man. I have the mother of all hangovers and I’m in a really bad mood.”

“A little hair of the dog, eh?”

“It’s too early in the morning for puns.”

“It’s dinnertime and I just got home from work to find my place has been cleaned out.”

“So what? You’ve got homeowner’s insurance, right?”

“I’m calling the cops. Ditch the clothes, the booze, and the miniature assault rifle, so I don’t have to explain you when they get here.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be passed out in the doghouse by then.”

Tracy walked back into the kitchen and dialed 911 on his cell. “Over nine million dogs in the world, and I have to get one that’s a vet with PTSD. Oh, hello. 911. My house has been robbed. They took everything.”

###

“What are we going to do now, Rusty? It’s the start of a long, holiday weekend and my house is empty, and I mean completely empty. They even took the ice cube trays. What kind of a sick monster takes the ice cube trays?”

They were sitting together in the backyard on the grass watching the moon rise. Two empty pizza boxes were discarded next to the man and his dog, and they were working on emptying another bottle of bourbon.

“Relax, man. We’ve got each other, just like always.”

“Yeah, two major league screw up vets getting drunk together on a Friday night.”

Rusty paused, searching through the haze in his mind for a moment. “Ever think I’ll find a way back home?”

“Beats me. I don’t know what caused that weird dimensional portal or whatever it was that brought you here.”

“Freak electrical storms are a mother bear. Good thing you were pulled over on that side road in the desert, or I might have died out there. Still…”

“What? You don’t like it here?”

“Don’t get me wrong. You’re a great wingman and all, but it would be nice to mate with a dog I could talk to. All the canines in the human world are dumb as a box of bricks.”

“Like you said, we’ve got each other. Not like that of course, but…you know what I mean.”

“I know. Hey. I’m dry.” The army dog turned his empty bottle upside down and shook it. “Pass me another, will you?”

“You’ll be sorry in the morning.”

“I’m sorry now. That’s why I want another bottle.”

Tracy smiled at his best friend in the world. “Sure, Pal. Coming right up.”

I wrote this for First Line Friday hosted at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. Today, the idea is to use the posted sentence as the first line of a poem, short story, or some other creative work.

I saw the image at the top in social media not too long ago and thought it was hilariously funny, so I decided to base my wee tale on it. It’s sort of a Howard the Duck thing (comic book, not the horrible movie which I’ve never seen and never will). Although my story has its humorous aspects, it can also be interpreted as the relationship between two veterans who’ve seen and done things that have changed them forever.