Story-writing debate

My Last Day on Earth. (A short story)' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' One. Gestures are all I have, now, it seems. Sometimes they have to be flamboyant, grandiose, occasionally dipping into the melodramatic, just to get my point across. It never seems to come across right, though… I only have gestures left to communicate effectively and clearly. You see, I can hardly speak anymore, now my tongue is flat and long and loose. It’s horribly difficult just for me to eat, moving and shifting the food across my mouth with my tongue, but it is worse for forming intelligible sounds into polysyllabic grunts to gestate a sentence. Now I just have to wait for blessed Benny to get home, waiting in a puddle of my own urine… I’m old. I’m getting older – there’s no denying that. And while I’m perfectly capable of getting older, that’s not the way I want to get out. I mean, just look at me. I’m shot full of steroids and drugs to reduce the arthritis in my joints. My seeing foggy from my cataracts. Puffed up plastic packages of Doggy Depends hidden away under the pantry… I’m sure John – my owner, bless him – would get me one of those damned wagons I’ve seen on the street – you know the ones I mean, that keep your… what’s it called… ones that keep your hind cradled so you can drag it about around the street. That’s just degrading. Humiliating. Guantanamo would use these things as torture devices. He’d do it out of love of course, no denying that. Danny, bless his soul, wouldn’t want to see me dead. Wait… is it Dan? No, no, it’s Mark. Mark, bless him, how did I forget? Loves me like nothing else. Couldn’t bear to see me go, shooting me full of drugs. He does it out love, though. He couldn’t see me go: he’d keep me in a jar, eyeballs drifting about, free as anything, with feeding tubes for my brains. But I don’t want to be kept alive, no way. I know what happens next. You see, I saw what happened. On TV, surprisingly. Flicking through one day, years ago, I saw a documentary on Mongolian culture and religion of all things. It was one of the best things I ever saw on TV – other than the 1988 Olympic tennis match between and Moyette, where his sedate playing style proved him an artist of the game. After the 1988 Olympics tennis match final, the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV was the documentary that explained it all to me, making it all clear, showing me the truth: when a dog is finished living his life as a dog, they’ll be reincarnated. They’ll be reincarnated as a man. You know, I’ve always felt quite human. There’s something within me that makes me quite different from other dogs, I always thought. Sure, maybe I look like a dog, but when did that matter? It’s what’s on the inside that counts. It’s the soul. And my soul is very human. I’m ready to be a man now, though I realise I’ll lose all that I have been. All of my memories, all of my experience, all of my knowledge, all of that which makes me me – whish. Gone in an instant. I’d like to take them with me in the next life. All of what I learnt when the house was on fire, when I drew mud on the floor… but I have little say in the matter. After all, how could I force myself to remember? I can’t imprint anything on my soul, something without surface, without sides, without pages, not a form of any kind. I can’t carry it and grab it and choke it down into the recess of my mind so when I open my eyes and feel my fingers and thumbs I’ll already know. I will already see. All I’ve got to do is wait. Wait for the end, the great void, the last hurrah, the— The bell next to the door starts ringing. The door is open, and my master, Frank, has come home.