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Trinity Journal ofLiterary Translation
believe he’s a killer dog if you saw the face he pulls when he needs to go the toilet. His jowls drool, his eyes droop and he makes the cutest little wailing sounds. So I look at him pitifully, I understand him, you get me? And I open the door so he can relieve himself. “Buba jumps out and I take a few steps with him, but then I notice there’s an offer on for Revlon conditioners in the station shop, so I stop ’cause this is important, and he carries on. And that’s when the other dog appears. Or should I say, a shit of a dog, sorry for the language, ok? A filthy stray mongrel with his tail undocked and ears hanging down. Have you seen dogs whose tails and ears aren’t cut? Yuck, horrible. Then it got worse. “So, you can imagine, can’t you? The mutt starts barking, Buba starts barking, they get all wound up, the Revlon conditioners are only on offer if you buy shampoo as well, Niki is never going to finish taking a dump and, suddenly, there’s Buba chasing the other dog, the barking, the biting. Same as always, except for the truck. Of course I couldn’t have foreseen the truck being there ’cause, I mean, it’s not like I can tell the future. You know what I’m talking about, right? I heard the squealing of the brakes and the dog’s whine. “Honestly, judging by that weird whine, I thought he’d destroyed the mutt. “But it wasn’t like that. “When Niki came out of the toilet and saw his dog, I was already trying to find sun cream. Niki knelt down beside Buba, kissed his wounds, stood up and came straight over to me. I welcomed him with a smile, thinking, look, we’re lucky, you know? We’re alive, I mean, it could have been worse. And he welcomed me with four shots from the Umarex CPSport. It’s yellow, the Umarex CPSport. Have you ever seen a yellow gun? Niki has one. “Everything else about being dead is mundane. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s boring, ’cause nobody who’s alive listens to you anymore. Mind you, they come for you and put you on a stretcher, so even though you’re already dead, they put you on a stretcher and into an ambulance anyway. Unbelievable, isn’t it? As if you were alive. It makes you feel good, doesn’t it?