Fetch
“I think your kid’s broken.”
“You’re fucking broken”, Jeff growled. His face was mostly hidden into his coffee cup but he peered over the rim every few seconds, keeping an eye on the small child running back and forth across the brightly lit courtyard. It was practically daylight out with how full the moon was overhead so it was more than enough for even one small brat to see by.
Toby stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth and crunched them noisily as he watched the boy play with Smile Dog. Boy had a stick, a good sturdy stick of decent size, and he kept bringing it to Smiley to show him, telling Smiley that he was going to throw the stick and that Smiley was supposed to fetch it.
But every time, before he could finish, Smile Dog would grab the stick from the baby’s hand and jerk his head to the side to fling the object across the courtyard. Complaining and scolding the whole way, Boy trotted off after the stick and brought it back to where Smiley was sitting to start over again because Smiley wasn’t listening. He was a bad dog.
And then Smiley would take the stick and throw it once more and Boy would go running after it.
“What’s worse- that he’s teaching the baby how to play fetch, or that we’re watching the dog teach the baby how to play fetch?”
Jeff grunted again, and just continued to watch the endless running back and forth. Toby upended the bag to get those last few crumbs into his mouth, before balling it up and stuffing it into a pocket.