A Boy and His Dog

That's the problem with testing new technology like this. We had no idea what the device could do to the brain so we had to set up trials. Of course, you can't just do human trials first, the point of these kinds of things is to make sure no one is gonna get hurt. Now, being the ragtag little group of kids we, were we couldn't just order up lab rats or guinea pigs or anything like that.

So I used my dog. His name was Bosco, after those bread sticks everyone loved in town, and when I say everyone I mean everyone. Even him, he loved 'em too haha.

Heh, Bosco was a cheery little thing, a happy go lucky little beagle who I'd had for years. He was the kind of dog who would bound up to you after school and start givin' you doggy kisses like his life depended on it, he missed you and you missed him. I had such utter confidence in what we were doing that I was perfectly fine implanting him. Perfectly fine implanting myself.

I had had him sedated, made sure everything went along smoothly, same for me. When we saw he was fine they did me and tada, we both had it. It was like nothing had happened to us by the time they turned them on. And when they did... My god, when they did...

I didn't expect much out of the world's first telepathic dog; first telepathic anything, really. The device was meant for the transference of sentient human thought between human beings, and we just wanted to see if anything could survive the implant and if it even worked. As we all know, dogs aren't sentient, they don't think- 'least not like we do. I expected... Well I don't know what I expected. We had done my implant at Johnny's, it was past the input and output barriers we set up on the things; we didn't want anything to happen from the sudden transmission and reception.

I remember feeling excited, we had done it, a human being had survived the implant, I had survived. Then I felt a twinge of sadness, I didn't know why at the time, but I just felt... Well I don't know, a void in my heart, a worry, and an anxiety. I chalked it up to mere worry about the device, second thoughts, doubt, all that. I never even realized we had walked into the input/output perimeter.

I walked into that door and here comes Bosco, plowing right into me and I just felt so... So happy, like a kid being told he was going to Disneyland, such utter pure joy filled me and I hugged and I cuddled Bosco and I told him again and again "We did it Bosco! We did it!". We did it... I was so happy, "No one's going to make fun of us ever again Bosco" I told him... I was so excited about it all, and so happy, I didn't realize how unusually excited Bosco himself was. He often jumped about when I came home but this time he was jumping and running- he ran circles around the couch, raced through the halls and back to me, yippin' and yappin'. It was almost like he was as excited as I was. He was as excited as I was. He was sharing in my excitement. That was my excitement.

See, what I never considered was the transference of feeling, the raw emotional data zooming from mind to mind. You see, animals aren't like us, they don't feel the strange, complex, nuanced and sometimes- we think- indescribable emotions we do. Their feelings are raw and pure, they feel something and they feel it whole and so... So intensely... Whenever I was around Bosco, I was truly, honest to god happy. The happiest I had ever been. Not the "happiest I've ever been" like when you just got married and you're happy but also nervous and doubtful and this and that. No, this was, I believe; the purest, grandest, truest happiness I think any single human being has ever felt. It was therapeutic in a sense, whenever I was worried, or sad about- oh I don't know, my grades, the pretty girl next door, or the mean kids at school, I'd just go home to Bosco and it was as if my own emotions were fighting against a storm, to not be swept away by rising tides. Every time, every single time though, they lost and were swept away by Bosco's waves of complete joy. It worked both ways too, of course, Bosco would know I was sad or angry or frustrated and come to me because he felt it. Sometimes, a lot of times, it'd affect him. I'd see him moping, or dragging along, not eating, but just looking at him made me remember how happy he'd make me when I was like that and those memories made me happy and then he was happy. It was nice how we balanced each other out like that. I liked that, they're nice memories.

We lived like that for months, and it was wonderful. Until... the shooter. I-

I would often take Bosco for walks in this park by my school, he liked it. I liked it. It was calming, trudging along through amongst the trees. Made you think, but in a way that was almost as if you weren't thinking at all- at vacuous ease with the world, a rationalization of the whole and a contentedness with it. And no one was more calm than Bosco himself, he wouldn't run there, or bark, but you could see his eye dart around, all wide and reflective. You could see how he saw the world in his big, brown eyes, no color but still... Still right, still good, that's all he needed to see. It was an amazing peace... Unreal, almost.

It was a Sunday, so only the Sunday school kids were there, and I had remembered that I had left something in class, so I had figured I could just go in and get it with Bosco, the Sunday school teacher wouldn't mind. We were rummaging through my cubby when we heard it. A gunshot, clear as day, rang throughout the mostly empty halls. Bosco knew that sound, it was the sound he heard... When an abusive prior owner ripped his mother from him when he was just a pup...

It was the sound of death.

In an instant I felt it, the fear. That fear was... It was the most powerful sensation I had ever experienced. I wheezed, I gagged, I couldn't breathe. The fear, his fear, it was so terrifying... MY fear became his again and his mine and mine his and again and again and again and again and again-

It was a panic like no other. A raw, primal terror. I collapsed, I shook, I cried. Bosco just lay there. His eyes were damp. If anyone had seen us then and looked into our eyes they could see what we had seen, a glimpse into just how meaningless it all was, how pointless everything we ever did was, how it could all be taken away from you at any time without any consent and there was nothing you could do... It was all over by the time anyone found us, huddled, shaking and crying in a closet. Bosco wasn't the same after that. He could still be cheery, still be... Bosco, but... There was always something beneath it, a despair, an anxiety, like he doubted reality itself. Any waking moment could be the last, any movement, any sudden surprise could mean death in an instant. The fear permeated every single day, and every single night. I couldn't sleep. It made everything I did potentially the last thing I would ever do and... I-

I couldn't live like that. I couldn't sleep- Couldn't think. The fear grew and it grew and grew until it shadowed over everything in my life.

I couldn't take it. It was maddening. I got home one day after school, Bosco didn't come. I didn't think about where he was I just went straight for dad's baseball bats. I grabbed one and went to where I KNEW he was... Where I felt he was. He was out back, in the yard. He was staring at one of the trees. I was outraged and confused and crying when I went outside and he was still...

Just staring calmly at the tree. He knew why I was there, he... Welcomed it.

I took the bat and I-

I...

I felt it. A... A damp calm- He was so calm... And I was so g-guilty- And then... Then a grand nothing, an expansive void, I experienced death as I lived, I-It's so- It's so empty

And then there was nothing, he was gone.

His body was so warm afterwards... I had my hand on his hide for a long time as I knelt there. I knelt there and wallowed, wallowed in rage, confusion, sorrow, self-hatred. I've never cried so much in my life.

And then... Moments later... I felt it, I felt a feeling that was not mine... It was so pure- a deep, complete serenity, a love- A love, I swear, f-for m-
For me...
He was dead, I knew it, but I felt- I felt him...

I just hope... Just hope he could feel my love for him too.