A boy and his (Sister's) Dog

"You know you wanna give me a piece of that Churro." Said the Corgi, looking as pathetic and desperate as he always did when eyeing up Bart's food.

"Not for dogs, Bobo," replied Bart in a bored, dismissive way

"Cmooooonnn man! I'm starving here! And that bit of dee-liscous beaner cuisine would really hit the spot!"

"Quiet!" Bart snapped loudly.

It was bad enough that his sister had passed away, leaving him without his big sister/caregiver/paragon-of-all-that-is-good-and-right-in-the-world.

His sister, the great Melissa Holmsworth: First Female commander of the Inter Planetary Relay Station, who had heroically died during an EVA to selflessly help her comrade who had been injured by an errant piece of space junk hurtling around the earth at an excess of 17,500 miles per hour.

She had died a hero to all, and one of the most profitable pieces of inspirational capital since Neil Armstrong first set foot upon the surface of the moon.

It was another thing entirely to leave her brother a racist talking dog.

"Geez alright man chill out or something," Bobo whimpered as he set his head down between his paws.

"And knock it off with the slurs! I cant begin to tell you how rude and disconcerting that is," Bart told his reluctantly accepted pet.

He stared the dog in the eyes as he popped the last bit of sugary treat into his mouth, as a sort of act of dominance and began to sit up from the bench across from the churro stand. Bobo stretched out and yawned before excitedly getting up to his stubby little feet to continue their walk to the dog park.

As they walked down the busy streets of the lower downtown, Bart began thinking about how much he missed his big sister and how he was going to get his life back together with her gone. He found it strange that it was these feelings of grief that were front-and-center in his mind and not the fact that his sister's dog of the last 12 years was now talking to him.

And did the little shit EVER like to talk

"Hey! Hey Bart! do you think well get to see those little Jawas again?" Bobo asked him with a glint of excitement in his voice.

"Uhh, Jawas Bobo? like in Star Wars? I don't know what you mean."

"No! not Star Wars, the funny little Asian people that talk real fast and always seem to clump up in their cute little family units! I just love em so much!"

It took a second or two to realize that Bobo was referring to the Garcia's: a Filipino family that lived in the building down from their apartment.

"Goddamnit Bobo! You can't call Filipino people Jawas! That's horrible!"

Just as the words left his lips, Bart noticed a group of older men across the street staring him down.

"Careful whatchu sayin round here mang" one of the men said as he took a drag on his stim inhaler. "That kinda talk gets a little kid beat ya?"

"Best not let the esse's hear you sayin that shit comprende?"

Bart kept his head down and hurriedly walked up the street. His heart was racing and he was feeling a panic attack coming on when out of nowhere, Bobo began pulling on his leash so hard he began to choke himself. As they rounded the corner, Bart saw that the Garcia kids also had thought it was a good day for a walk.

"JAWAS!!!! YES!!" Bobo yelled as he managed to wrench the leash out of Bart's hand.

He took off towards the kids that were coming from the park with such speed that Bart didn't even get a word of warning off before the fat little dog torpedo'd himself towards them.

"Hiya Bobo!" Angel Garcia said in a surprised tone of voice as she bent down to catch the speeding dog missile. "Who's this good boy?" Bobo had flipped over onto his back for the ensuing tummy scratches Angel and Esteban Garcia were sure to hand out.

"Bobo! Don't run off like that!" Bart shouted followed by an immediate apology to the two
Garcia children.

"Aww its ok mister! We love your little cutie here don't we?" Angel said with a handful of corgi belly-fur

Bobo's tongue was hanging stupidly out of his mouth as he accepted the belly scratches.

"Awww yeah, that's the good stuff! There's just something about these little gugu hands that really-"

"ENOUGH!!" Bart yelled towards his dog. "You can't call them gugu's you little fucker!"

Angel and Esteban froze and quickly backed away from the dog, still lying on his back.

Bart barely had enough time to apologize for his outburst before he was struck from behind and the pavement suddenly rushed up at his face.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO MY KIDS?!" an angry Pablo Garcia bellowed at him.

"W-what? N-no! I wasn't-"

The elder Garcia shoved him again

"You EVER talk to my children that way again, and I’ll give you something to yell about! I know that losing your sister has been hard on you, boy, but that's NO excuse for that filthy language! Angel! Esteban! come over here this instant and leave that dog alone!'

The two siblings quickly skittered behind their father and were hurriedly whisked away.

Bart was trembling with embarrassment, anger and self pity as he slowly picked himself up off the ground.

"Not cool Bart. I was getting the GOOD scratches ya know? why'd you have to ruin it for me?" The dog said in a condescending tone of voice, or whatever it was that Bart kept hearing.

"I don't give a shit you stupid little bastard! you're gonna get me seriously injured or worse!"

"Man, you've got some serious anger issues kid," Bobo said

"I don't even get what's the problem! I love the little flips! you're acting as if I hate em or something!"

"I'm warning you, dog.." Bart hissed through his teeth.

"Oh yeah? what're you gonna do about it? Your sister never cared about referring to those sub-civilized little people as "flips, or gugu's or-"

"STOP IT!!!" Bart screamed.

People on the street were now giving him some very unwelcome attention. but the dog kept on going.

"No! I wont!" Bobo said petulantly. "Melissa said that as white American's, its our duty to uphold the values and traditions of our master race, and if that means calling out a few nips or spics-"

"...what did you just say," Bart's voice was trembling as more onlookers gathered to see the distraught boy talking to his dog.

"What, you didn't know? Man, your big sis was in DEEP with the 'keep it white, keep it right' crowd. She even went so far as to have her husband invite her as the guest of honor to one of his proud-white-people-parties at their place in the country!"

"..No... you're lying. She wasn't-"

"She WAS Bart! Your big sis was a true American Patriot! You should be proud of what she's accomplished! She wouldn't be putting up with you living next door to a family of Jawas ya know. Sure, they're good at givin the good scratches but do you know how they live? and the SMELL! I cant even begin to-"

Bart gave Bobo a sudden kick to his side. A surprised squeak shot out of Bobo's mouth as he took the blow.

"Hey man! That shit hurts!” Bobo whined as Bart kicked him again.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!" Bart bellowed as he kicked his dog a third time.

The crowd around Bart grew and had now begun to whisper among themselves:

"That kids gone crazy!"

"Poor Doggie!"

"Someone should do something!" while others began recording video on their hand terminals.

"Yeah that's it Bart, get it out of your system," growled Bobo.

"Get used to the idea that maybe your big sis wasn't all she seemed to be, because that's not all the skeletons she's got in her closet. You ever wondered why she got the posting to the IPRS? Well, for starters, its not like they'd let some goddamn N-"

Bart snapped.

There was a sudden and violent tug at Bobo's neck as he was pulled off the ground by the leash in Bart's hand. In an uncanny act of desperate savagery, Bart had begun to swing the dog around by it's neck, once, twice, then in a cathartic throw, released it into an oncoming automated delivery truck where the foul creature exploded into a cloud of blood and viscera. Bystanders were screaming in horror as they were showered in exploded corgi bits, completely ignoring the trembling and psychotic boy that had just hurled his dog into a robo delivery unit.

Bart felt an unnerving calm settle over him as he drifted through the horror-stricken crowd towards a nearby park bench. He sat down in a slow, almost robotic way as the group of concerned citizens were still trying to piece together the hideous spectacle they had just witnessed.

He took a deep breath, spread his arms out over the back to the bench and exhaled, letting his body and his mind deflate like an air mattress that had been popped over a barbed wire fence.

His heartbeat had slowed and his trembling subsided as he was about to pull out his terminal to call the local psych evaluations office when a pigeon had landed on the bench beside him.

"You shouldnt'a did that mang," the pigeon said to him.

A sharp panic strangled his mind. Was the dog really talking to him? Was it all in his head? had his jealousy of his sister's accomplishments manifest itself in the form of a talking dog?

"What did you just say?" Bart shakily asked the pigeon as it flew off from beside him.

"I sayed, you shouldna did that mang: that shit was nasty. Y'all need to get some help or summin, the elderly homeless man behind him said.