Your Own Human

by Arizona Tape

  “Why did it bite my ankle then?”

  “Cause you swatted at it, but look, it... She, it’s a she, is perfectly harmless.”

  The little puppy growled again, shaking her head as she pressed her cold, wet nose against my hand. She softly barked “Wraf!” and licked with a tiny, pink tongue at my finger.

  “Awww, she’s adorable,” I cooed, patting her head and making her look up at me with her big chocolate eyes.

  “Wraff, wraff, wraff!” the doggy happily barked, running circles between my legs. She picked up a branch far too big for her and wagged her tail. She dropped the stick at my feet and looked expectantly at me.

  “Wraff?”

  “Umm...” I hesitated, looking at Heather for guidance.

  “Throw it,” she nudged me, smiling at my ignorance.

  “Throw the doggy?” I asked confusedly. Why would I throw the baby puppy?

  “No, silly, not the doggy. The stick.”

  I raised my eyebrows, still not sure. “Where am I throwing the stick to?”

  “I’ll show you,” Heather explained, snapping her fingers to get the puppy’s attention. The little dog hopped away from me and curled up next to Heather’s shoe, looking cutely at her. Heather grabbed the stick and waved it in front of the puppy, who immediately jumped up and barked.

  “Do you want this? You want the stick, little girl? Yes? You’re going to catch the stick?” she cooed, the puppy barking and running up and down with her tongue out of her mouth.

  “Wraff, wraff!”

  “Go fetch!” she yelled, throwing the stick away. We watched how she ran after it, her tail wagging enthusiastically. She jumped on the stick and growled, pretending it was alive. She took it in her mouth and ran back to us, her ears flapping in the wind while her little paws drummed on the ground. She dropped the stick in front of our feet and sat down, barking cutely while she nudged the stick closer to us.

  “Awwww, who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl?” Heather smiled as she patted the doggy on her head again. She picked up the stick and gave it to me. “Your turn.”

  I grinned and threw the stick away and yes, the puppy ran behind it, barking happily. She grabbed the branch and proudly brought it back, laying it at my feet.

  “Aww, very good.” Heather patted the doggy on her back and scratched her furry belly when she rolled over. “Where did you come from, little girl?” she asked, while she sought out the little tag around her neck. “Ira. Isn’t that a pretty name? Yes, that’s a pretty name for a pretty doggy.”

  “So, the doggies just run around like this?”

  Heather nodded. “Yes, they’re bred for companionship and don’t really belong to anyone in particular. They get trained and used by us, for when we go exploring or just for kids to play with. I’m not sure where this little girl is coming from, she must have escaped her pen.”

  “She’s so cute.”

  “Yes, little puppies are always adorable.”

  A guy stumbling caught my attention. “Ira! There you are!”

  We turned our heads, trying to locate the source. A guy with a funny cap on his head and weird coloured pants with lots of pockets came running towards us. “Hey, you found her. Good, this little rebel ran away from her little brothers and sisters. I’ve been looking for her all over the place.”

  “Little rebel?” I asked, wondering why he would call this adorable little puppy that.

  “Yes, she is a little rebel. She likes to dig holes in the grass and will get her paws muddy whenever she can. Oh, and after she did that, she’ll look at you with big eyes, pleadingly, and you can’t stay mad at her.”

  “She seems very sweet indeed.”

  “True. I got to get her back to her pen though.”

  “Oh…” My face fell when I realised I had to say goodbye to the little brown fuzzy ball. I snapped my fingers, luring her to me. She scuffled to my feet and rolled herself up.

  “Hey little girl… It’s time for you to go, yes it is. Yes it is. But it was really nice meeting you, yes, yes it was. You’re a good girl, you’re a good girl,” I said with a childlike voice, tickling her belly and ruffling her ears.

  Heather kissed Ira goodbye and we watched our little friend dribble away, her tail wagging happily as she did.

  “Shame, I liked that doggy,” I sighed, a bit sad. She hadn’t been here for long, but I already got pretty attached and would’ve enjoyed playing with her for longer.

  “Yes, puppies are always cute,” Heather agreed.

  We sat a little longer in silence, fingers intertwined. I stared at the paw prints Ira left on the ground and smiled. I’d never forget my first encounter with a puppy. Most of all, I discovered something new about myself. I liked animals. The horse was a bit big, although friendly. But this little doggy really made my heart melt. There was something about those animals, something I couldn’t place. They seemed so… Alive. Vibrant and carefree. Yes, I certainly wouldn’t forget about Ira, the brown doggy.

  Heather turned and stretched the stiffness from her limbs. “Want to see the library now?”

  I nodded silently, my thoughts still with all the new impressions of today. She grabbed my hand, ran her thumb over the back, and we walked away. We crossed a grit covered path, in between patches of grass and then a lane of little trees. The scent of fresh leaves and dirt penetrated my nose and I was surprised by how familiar it smelled.

  “We’re here,” Heather whispered

  We stood front of a big, metal box with little windows and the most depressing building. And I thought my library looked dark.

  “I have to warn you though, it’s not exactly a library,” Heather mused, awkwardly scratching her head.

  “Oh?”

  “I mean, it is and it isn’t. You can’t take the books with you,” she explained, before snorting and adding: “Why don’t I just show you.”

  “I’d like that.”

  My blue-eyed girlfriend tugged on my hand and reached for the door handle. The grey building revealed a surprisingly well-lit, warm room. Low chandeliers hung from the ceiling, spreading a yellowish glow throughout the shallow glass casings. On the left, I found the biggest glass cases with foreign objects. In front of me, a couple of paintings I’d only seen in books and a lot I hadn’t ever seen before. On the right, some shelves with little gadgets and here and there the occasional book. It was rather warm and everything seemed to be in a good shape.

  “Wow,” I breathed out, surrounded by the past. A past I had been trying to uncover for the longest of time and was now, literally, on full display in front of me. How I dreamed of all this, but even in my wildest dreams, it never was as good as this. Because for the simple reason, this was real. This was really, really, real.

  “It’s more a museum than a library,” Heather grinned cheekily, noticing the sparks in my eyes.

  “It’s… Wow… Overwhelming.”

  “Go on, you can look at everything,” she nudged me, setting me off in a hasty, but steady trot towards the first objects on the left. I tried not to run, so I sort of bopped like a bouncy ball to the nearest glass display. A golden border lined the case and showcased a framed piece of paper with a golden plate of information underneath it. Someone scribbled words down on the parchment in a language I recognised as Old French.

  Une collection de différentes essences de bois. De gauche à droite: Le pin, le noisetier, le chêne blanc, le cèdre, le palmier. Ces échantillons ont été récupérés d'une ancienne boutique de bois avant la grande inondation de 3215

  A collection of different woods. From left to right: Pine, hazel, white oak, cedar, palm. These samples were retrieved from an old wood shop before the Big Flood in 3215

  I stared at all pieces of wood, with different colours and shades. There was a remarkable difference in roughness from the palm and the rough bark of the white oak. With my super sensitive scent I could smell the faintest of faint perfumes, each different from the other. The fresh smell of pine, a bit musky. The nuttines
s of the hazel. An almost familiar smell from the white oak and it resembled the scents we had for our building materials. And then there was the cedar, my favorite, which smelled almost fruity. It had deep, sweet notes and hints of something I could only describe as the colour orange. And the palm was as exotic as I imagined it to be. Of all the woods, this one was definitely the most nauseatingly perfumed.

  If I hadn’t been so ecstatic, I probably would have contained myself, but I couldn’t. Heather must’ve looked at me like I was a sniffing maniac, inhaling its favorite drug. Admittedly, I was getting a bit high, but that was probably from the adrenaline rush.

  After sniffing all the wood samples and getting funny looks from Heather, I decided to move on to the next glass box. There were all these tiny little brown pieces that I didn’t recognise. I pressed my nose against the glass to read the golden plate.

  “Seeds from all over the world. Huh, cool. Seeds?” I asked, looking at Heather, to make sure I got it right. “You mean, baby trees?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow, so you just stick them in the ground and a tree comes out?”

  “Yes, but not right away though. I mean, after a year or twenty, you got a tree.”

  “Oh, that’s pretty fast.”

  “It’s really not, but okay. For you it might be fast.”

  “I guess. Hey, who’s that lady,” I asked, distracted. I pointed at a painting over to the right. It was pretty big and I had never seen it before either. “Hmm… She looks kind of unsatisfied. And a bit snobbish, to be fair.”

  “Who?”

  “That one, the girl with the faint smile.”

  Heather squinted her eyes. “The girl with the faint smile?”

  “Yes.”

  “The girl with the faint smile?!”

  “Ehmm… Yes?”

  “That’s the Mona Lisa!” she yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “Oh. Well, the Mona Lisa doesn’t look satisfied.”

  “She doesn’t look—?! Dear god,” Heather sighed, facepalming while shaking her head lightly. “This is the most famous painting from a very famous painter. It’s art.”

  I smiled. “You like art?”

  “No, not exactly, but I know a couple of things about it.”

  “Huh. Okay then, so, this ‘The Mona Lisa’ woman, who is she?” I asked, curious about the painting. I did like art, but I was unfamiliar with this work.

  “Well, again, ‘the’ is not part of the name. There is no ‘the’ in front of our names. Her name is Lisa.”

  “Ah… So, what’s the ‘The Mona’ for then?”

  “It’s like ‘the lady’. So it’s the lady Lisa.”

  “So, what does this Lisa lady do.”

  “What does she do? Well… Well… Ehmm… She sits… And smiles?” Heather stuttered, her face flushing red. She scratched the back of her neck and leant over to read the golden plate. “She, ummm, I can’t see…” she muttered, pulling up her eyebrow while trying to read.

  I grinned and stepped closer to her, so I could read the tag too. It was just a way to have her closer to me. Sneaky, but it felt nice being so close to her. Her presence soothed me, made me feel safe.

  “Let’s see… Leonardo Da Vinci undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife. Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna, similar to Ma’am, Madam, or my lady,” Heather read out, making me snicker.

  “She looks pretty sour for a lady.”

  “I can’t believe you’re making fun of the Mona Lisa.”

  “Oh well, she can’t be that famous, I never heard of her. Besides, she’s just a lady.”

  “Just a… Arghh, never mind. Why don’t we move on to something else.” Heather took my hand in hers and pulled me towards the back of the museum. She swiped her key card and with soft beep and click, a hidden door opened. “These are the archives, they are not on display, but there is a lot of interesting stuff here for you, I believe.”

  I breathed a whiff of a something that seemed familiar, yet I couldn’t immediately place. It was dusty and made my throat scratchy, but also prickled my nose and kind of made me almost sneeze, but not quite. It was how I imagined history smelled.

  Heather reached out to the wall and flicked a switch on. With slow clacks, faint blue light flickered on and illuminated the storage room. Of course, I didn’t need the light to see properly, but light was never a bad thing.

  “Ohh, wow,” I whispered as not to stir up the dust. “Books.”

  Heather nodded and opened a couple of closets, before pulling out a box with thin, latex gloves. I slipped the gloves on, pulling up my nose from the squeaky powder inside.

  I tiptoed around, my fingers itching to flip through the pages and soak up all the treasures hidden in the books. There were so many, all leaning against each other, sitting cosily and snugly together with their friends.

  “Oh goodie, oh goodie, oh goodie,” I murmured, almost jumping up and down from excitement. This was exactly what I’d been dreaming about for years.

  “I thought you might like this,” Heather said, a hint of smugness in her voice.

  “Like this? Love this!” I breathed loudly, swiping my fingers over the backs of the books when I walked past them.

  “Go ahead, read one,” she encouraged me.

  “Oh, I can’t pick one,” I said, spoiled with so many choices.

  Heather tapped on my shoulder and pointed to a shelf on the right side. “You like history, right? Let’s start there.”

  I grinned like a child in a candy store and skipped to the history section, realising they were categorised by time and I searched for the years 3000. The ending and beginning of a race. A big, heavy book seemed to call out on me, so I carefully pulled it out from between the shelf. I flipped the front open, coughing from the dust spreading through the air. The book seemed to be written in old Chinese, which was one of the only old languages I never really mastered. With a huff, I closed the book and placed it back in its shelf. Why didn’t I try harder to study Chinese?

  Luckily, there were lots and lots of books more. I pulled another one out, checked the title this time to make sure it was a language I was fluent in, and happily found Old English.

  Perfect.

  I opened the book and lost myself in between the words.

  Chapter 8: Guide

  I flipped through fifteen different books, before I wondered if Heather wasn't impossibly bored. I closed the book and slid back to its original place where it slid in with a soft poof.

  “You must be bored, you want to do something else?” I asked my blue-eyed girl.

  “No, you're cute reading all those books. You scrunch your nose when you're confused and your eyebrows are participants of a dance only you know. I like watching you,” Heather confessed, blushing as she revealed just how into me she was.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, very sure. You read as much as you desire. Orrr...” she trailed off, tweaking my curiosity.

  “Orrrrr?” I inquired, the sneakiness in her voice waking up a buzzing in my stomach.

  Heather looked around, to check we were alone. “We could take some with us.”

  “But... I thought you said it wasn't allowed?” I asked, making her waggle her eyebrows in mischief and her eyes twinkle with amusement.

  “That's what makes it so fun,” she said, in an almost daring tone, making me wonder where this rascal had appeared from.

  “Ahaa, challenge accepted,” I smirked, waggling my eyebrows as well.

  She smiled and winked. With a blush on her cheeks, the spark in her eyes, and the grin on her lips, she had never looked more beautiful than now. I stole a kiss from her pouty lips and waved a book in front of her face.

  “Tadaaa.”

  She bit her lip and kissed me back. Tentatively, she zipped her jacket open, making my eyes go wide in anticipation, wondering why she was undressing. She took the book I was holding and slid it under her c
oat, hiding it from plain sight. A wave of disappointment washed over me and I mentally slapped myself for even thinking of something else. Until I was completely sure she wanted this, I shouldn't be imagining her velvety hair sprawled on a pillow, her skin soft on mine, her legs wrapped tightly around my hips and her wandering hands and plump lips lifting me higher to heaven.

  Ahem.

  Yeah, that was me not thinking about it. Great. I should give myself another mental slap.

  I shook that thought out of my head and grabbed another book, randomly. Without looking at the title, I shoved it under my jacket. Heather smiled, grabbed my hand, and pulled me towards the exit. She ran her card through the slot, making all the lights go out with a snappy click.

  “Wooops, wrong slot,” she giggled nervously. Maybe me standing so very close to her was affecting her. I hoped so.

  She swiped her key card again, unlocking the doors for us. We left the museum and looked at each other, a smirk playing on our lips, mischief glistening in our eyes. We strolled out of the park, our hands intertwined like they never should have been apart in the first place.

  I saw the little doggy from before run circles around a bench, two kids chasing each other, a couple making out and eventually an old man kissing the hand of his beloved. We passed the meadow with the horsies, who happily shook their heads as we passed by. And then finally after, we were all alone. The buzzing of the world already a faint memory.

  “This is my favorite place in the whole wide world,” Heather said, making me squint my eyes in confusion.

  “Yes, a wall with rocks is a beautiful place,” I hummed sarcastically, staring at nothing.

  “There is more than what meets the eye,” she riddled, tugging me towards the wall.

  I couldn’t see anything special, but my nose and ears were picking up on something I couldn’t apprehend with my eyes yet.

  “It sounds like...” I trailed off. There was a noise that sounded very familiar, yet it wasn't. It reminded me of how water fell from the faucet, but... Bigger. Louder?

  “Where is it coming from?” I asked, staring at a rock wall. A big, stone-hard, massive wall Heather kept walking toward with a determined look on her face, as if she intended to walk through the wall.