My Yellow Fury: Part II

Part II: Cosmo

Cosmo’s fur had changed from a sleek coat of jet-black to a bubbling surface of mange and dried blood. A ragged nub replaced the happy wag of his once friendly tail. His floppy ears, now shredded into tattered flesh, twitched with the erratic thrusts of his neck. Cosmo stripped skin away from the face of a black-haired woman whose locks ran over the bursting oak roots of the front yard.

Cosmo had not noticed me as I peered down at the woman, whose face was obscured by the feasting dog. Her body rocked like driftwood with each thrust from the dog’s jaws as I angled my neck to see her. Somehow, like an orchestrated ruse, Cosmo turned his body as I aimed to catch a glimpse of her face just in time to block my sight.

Before I could see her face or even discover the cause by which she had suffered beneath the oak tree, my bough gave way beneath, releasing a tremendous crack into the air. I would have fallen onto Cerberus himself if it weren’t for another branch just beneath. I groped the branch in relief, but saw that Cosmo now looked up at me.

His eyes encircled with yellow rings that shone with light from no earthly reflection.

He stared at me, stoic, for a moment longer to show the things he knew. His eyes told stories of panicked stabbing and silent strangling in the night.

Cosmo told his horrors and then released his bark, piercing and unrelenting up the oak tree. He maddened with my presence and barked until he choked for breath, which only fueled his frenzy. His lips curled, beneath his snout, exposing the sharpened teeth of no household pet. I didn’t know where the creature had come from but his entire wrath was intended for me.

His eyes widened with anger and his bark grew with desperation. For every ounce of hate he spat at me, I doubled it over and filled myself with the thought of my Father. I could still see in Cosmo’s side the single handle of a butterfly knife that wept with blood. My Father had wanted to take the only thing that had mattered to me; the only friend that I had ever known: Cosmo.

What this new realm had underestimated in me was the power of hatred to stew for three decades.

It had ripened and matured within my heart, which produced a heated funnel of energy that butted Cosmo’s fury. I struggled with his contempt as his eyes glared at me. It was at a moment when I thought I would be overwhelmed by the beast that I noticed a single, yellow toy truck roll up behind the dog.