FOWC with Fandango: Fluke
Tag Archives: fluke
RDP #30: Fluke
“Buzzzzzzz”
“Hello Mr. Fly. I am doing an interview for the Ragtag Fluke News. Can you tell me why you arrived on the table at this moment in time?”
“It was just a fluke of course, I could have arrived at the local cemetery, there is always something to eat, or I could have extended my family business by occupying yet another portion of cow recycling material and building a few self contained rooms for my children. However, I was buzzing around the human plate of food for something to eat.”
“And did you find something.”
“Yes and no I suppose. There was plenty, but I had the agony of choice. Shall I settle for the meat full of vitamins, or perhaps the potato, another organic food. It was then that the decision was made and I escaped becoming a fly pancake by avoiding a fly swatter in the nick of time. Humans were also eating and do not like to share with flies. I even tried the arm of a human to see if there was anything worth an absorbing motion, but nothing. And then I had a vision, more than a vision, do not forget I have five compound eyes and three simple eyes in between. Look at the orange surface on the front of my forehead, it is all eye. There is no escaping a fly examination and I spotted some liquids that had splashed from the meat. This was perfect, just a slurp and no extensive breaking down of the food particles. You could call it a fluke, but I savoured every drop.”
“But Mr. Fly, is your only purpose in life food.”
“No not quite, but it helps. As already mentioned the expansion of my family is also necessary. Where would you be without the flies. Who would deal with the surplus left after a meal? And the rats would no longer have a purpose in their lives. And now I must go, garbage is being produced from the leftovers of the meal and I have my part to play in the exploitation of the food processing.”
It was also a fluke that I happened to take this photo after lunch, come to think of it, most of my photos are flukes.
Daily Prompt: Bookworm
Tell us about the last book you read (Why did you choose it? Would you recommend it?). To go further, write a post based on its subject matter.
Photographers, artists, poets: show us WORDS.
The Alsatian in the photo belonged to a late friend of mine. It was her guard dog as she was handicapped, a dog to be proud of.
So what does the dog have to do with my daily prompt blog. To start at the beginning, I have a very good colleague on another blogger site, Mitch. He comments on my work, I comment on his and we once had a small discussion about the late James Herbert, a British author. James Herbert writes normally so-called “horror fiction” and often centres his stories in the east End of London, where my origins are. This is not surprising as he also grew up in this area, his parents having a stall in the local market. He was only a couple of years older than me, but I never met him although probably knew his parents from local visits to the Bethnal Green Road market.
I have not yet read all of his books, but am on my way. Mitch recommended reading the book “Fluke” telling the story of a dog that was once a human. Generally I do not like reading books about animals. I just get too emotional if anything negative happens to the animal. I am an animal lover and one of the reasons I would never want to work at a vets is because I would be too much involved with the animal feelings. I have three felines, my trio infernal, but no dogs. I like dogs, but my felines have a sort of thing about dogs. They run away when they are near, I wonder why?
So I decided to read “Fluke” by James Herbert and found it one of his best books. Just two hundred pages, but packed with stories and emotions, both human and doggy. Fluke was born in an animal home where he was up for adoption. At the beginning he tells of his life snuggled up to other furry creatures like himself. He is eventually adopted but did doggy things his new family did not like (he was a bit careless about where his toilet was) and returned to the home where it was decided he was unadoptable and was on the death list. Fluke ran off and then the adventure starts. He is “adopted” by a large street dog who lived and was a watchdog on a site where cars are dumped. This is somewhere in the South of London and the man in charge appears a dubious character. Fluke’s settles in with his new friend Rumbo. Rumbo is a perfectly trained street dog and always seems to know where his next meal is. Needless to say Fluke learns a lot of doggy tricks from Rambo.
All good things come to an end and one day Fluke finds himself again on the road, but now a fully grown dog and no longer a puppy. He finds a few humans that take him in, for better or worse, wanders off again, and spends life living rough in forests and where he finds shelter. In the meanwhile he realises that he was once a human and finds his way to his human origins. I do not want to make this blog one big spoiler, so read it all for yourself. I can only say that Fluke’s human life does not turn out as he thought it was.
There are a few sentimental moments in the story, but I could live with them. It does not have a happy end or a sad end, but just the life of a roaming dog that wanders on his way. Fluke I grew to love you and your story.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 