“I’m not trying to change you!” Melissa shouted back at Mike as she pulled her arm through her overcoat while wrestling open the deadbolt. “I just want you to conform and be healthy so you’re around in ten years!”

“Well, if you don’t open your eyes to what you know is real, maybe I’ll be gone when you get back,” Mike replied to the closed door, watching Melissa back out of the driveway in her hybrid SUV. He shook his head and walked over to Mutt’s cage to unlatch it, freeing the trapped hound dog.

“Hey, Mutt, you’re free,” he greeted his dog, who sniffed the leftover plate of tofurkey on the floor before bounding for the soft tufted sofa, wagging his tail as he settled his rump in the cushy center.

“Yeah, this healthy processed stuff isn’t fit for man or beast. Why didn’t I see it sooner?” Mike responded to Mutt’s overt disdain for the contents by scraping the tofurkey into the trash bin before rinsing the plate and setting it in the sink.

“Let me get a few things together and we’re out of here.” He continued the conversation with his dog, Mutton, so named because of his affection for meat of a certain persuasion. Mutton and Mike shared other similarities, a stocky build, thick hair, a friendly smile, an outgoing personality. Melissa, on the other hand, was soft and lithe and quiet, until she realized she wasn’t going to get her way – then her claws unsheathed.

Mike had accommodated her wish to pen Mutton in the cubicle they rented together and to take him to the groomer’s to have his nails clipped so his canine claws wouldn’t damage her precious sofas and chairs while he ran from the cage to the back door for his twice-daily walks around the perimeter of their cube. If she had her way, Mutton would go the way of his namesake, out of the house not to return.

He knew Melissa was a Reformed Vegan when they met, but she assured him that her religion accepted people of all political persuasions. Getting involved with someone in a higher political class did give him some prestige at work, and the past years with her saw him attain several rank advancements at the Company, albeit at a cost. When he questioned the amount of resources the Company used to generate all the politically correct ‘green’ foods, he was told that rank conferred could just as easily be removed. So he kept designing and maintaining generators that consumed more and more of Earth’s underground resources to produce artificial food and nutrition capsules at an increasing greater cost to consumers, espoused and partially subsidized by the Reformed Vegan Party.

“Come on, Muttonchops, we’re going to the surface, where the sun is free and food tastes like what it’s called.” He watched Mutt trot over to his cage and give it a sniff as if saying good-bye, before heading for the back door. After attaching the sidecar to his motorcycle for Mutt, Mike fired up the hog and smiled for the first time that day as he revved its powerful engine which actually used much less energy than Melissa’s SUV before turning his back on his artificial existence in the cubicle.

Mike saw them as soon as he emerged from the shelter of the mountain, sliding his proximity card into the gate for the final time, not waiting for its automated return. Two boys, un-barcoded, were playing in a tree, a real tree with leaves and real fruit he remembered from long ago. When he offered to buy one, the boys laughed ‘till they fell from the branches.

While one of them ran over and petted Mutt, the other climbed back up and returned with a fruit in his outstretched hand. “Apples fall for free, like us. Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Mike accepted the gift as he nodded at Mutton, who jumped from the sidecar and ran, playing with the boys as Mike bit through the crisp red skin of the apple and relished the taste and texture as he watched the boys playing with Mutton, as spry as a puppy. He whistled to Mutt only when he had finished the apple, core, seeds and all, and bid farewell to the boys, revving the motor and pointing his bike towards the setting sun.

He steered the motorcycle along what were but memories of paved roads, pockmarked and rutted where mortars had landed during the energy wars, now overgrown with thatch as Nature reclaiming that which humankind’s had discarded. Growing weary with the waning day, Mike looked about for a place in the brush where he and Mutt could bed down for the night. As the sun cast a final orange flare of farewell, he saw it, off the road, and with renewed energy aimed the hog towards the torchieres. He parked his bike and walked to the front door, where Mutt was waiting, panting as he wagged his tail at the enticing symphony of aroma and silverware.

Mike strode to a corner stool at the counter and picked up a menu, Mutt on the floor within hand’s reach, sweeping his tail back and forth like a metronome.

“What’ll it be, son?” a soft smiling voice asked.

“What do you recommend?” Mike responded by rote, still glancing at the variety of foods on the menu.

“I personally enjoy the beef burger on a fresh sesame bun,” came the reply. Mike set the menu on the table and his prepared courteous response stopped short in his throat.

“Mom!”

“Welcome home, son, will you be staying awhile?”

Mike took a step around the counter and hugged his mother’s aging frame, face marked with the passage of years, who returned his embrace with a kiss on his tear washed cheek.

“Yes, home,” Mike stammered, as Mutt accepted the hunk of meat from his mother’s fingers. “I’m back where an honest day’s work earns a meal that’s palatable, not political. Would that others could experience this.”

“We can, dearest,” Melissa walked over with her plate of beans and rice, smiling. “And we will raise a family here, where they can play with with dogs beneath apple trees, free to choose their own paths.” She took his land, linking fingers, a promise of hope for the future of Earth, an open heart to open the mind.

© 2008 manga-kate

Word Count = 1065

Prompts: A scene with a kiss; a hamburger, a motorcycle, a hound dog

Written for January 2008 ~ "48 Hour Short Story Contest" 

Open Eyes ~ 48 Hour Short Story  (ASR) Open eyes ~ an open mind ~ embrace what is unique real ~ 48 Hour Short Story Challenge #1381223 by Kate - Writing & Reading