The dog. He stood on the stop's platform and waited for every streetcar with its wheels screaming on the turn. He looked at the open doors and met everyone that got out and followed him with his eyes.
The dog was there every day and, when night came, he went to trash barrels and found something to eat. After supper he returned to his abandoned home and laid down on the old holey sofa. He closed his eyes and thought that he was lying between the legs of his owner who listened to classical music every night. His owner would stand up and prepare him the soup that the dog liked so much. He imagined that there was the roof above him and no rain. The dream became deeper and his memories warmer. But the scream of the wheels of the first streetcar on its far turn destroyed this sweet dream. The dog awoke and slid away from his old sofa and walked along the street, where nobody living, to the streetcar stop. He sat down and waited. He looked at the opened doors of an empty carriage and didn't understand that he had been abandoned forever.
The streetcars passed by, one by one. The strangers got out the doors and passed aside. At any time any boy could drop down some ice cream or any tender-hearted woman could pinch out and throw him a piece of bread. These were only things that could distract him. And the children that shot at him with their slingshots did not worry the dog. He sat and waited and believed that once like in old good times his owner would get out from the steps.
Night by night passed. The dog lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes. The pictures changed one by one. They were full of smells and colors. His owners' wife cooking pies and pieces of them go to the dog. Or he and his owner coming to a small park where there're many dogs with their owners. His owner throws him the wood stick and he runs after it and brings it back. Or a little girl that tickling his nose with pieces of grass when he was a puppy. And he began to sneeze in his dream. Then he awoke and saw that there was still nothing from the kitchen, where the owners' wife cooked, just two walls and an old rusty gas stove that hadn't smelled of gas for a long time.
She was dead long ago. And many tasty things had dye with her. But she came back to him in his dreams and caressed him. He awoke and the tears were on his face. Yet he had seen dreams about the long trips with his owner when they picked up the mushrooms. And he could run so much and he saw many birds and animals in the forest. Then they brought the mushrooms home. The smell reminded about the woods. Sometimes it was the scratch of the gates. And the dog could wince and turned on another side. Now the gates laid down the ground. But there was a metal shield on the single nail: "Beware of Dog!"
But the dog was good for everyone. He just knew his job and his place in this home. There're some years when he and his owner lived together, but once the dog felt something bad and blocked the door with his body. His owner spent enough power to move him aside and got to the streetcar stop. Then the dog never saw him again. But there was the invisible wire of hope that once more he would place his head on his owners' knees and would lick his palm and the owner will caress his head and scratch his cheek.
Day by day the same streetcars passed the street with a rattle. There were a noisy hiss of opening their doors. The strong voice that insisted on paying for the ride. The people entering and going out. The dog had sat down and followed them with his eyes.
Once he walked back home and saw there were big massive machines between heaps of scrap bricks instead the street where he lived before. Nothing remained of his home. No yard, no holey sofa. Just the corner of the old gates stuck out from broken stones and the wind played with the rusty shield: "Beware of Dog!"
He sat down and leaned against the piece of wall and began to howl. He howled all night long. Now he had no sweet dreams and no warm memories. He howled until the screaming of wheels begun on the far turn at the age of the city. It was the same streetcar that every morning destroyed his dreams. He stood up and began to walk down the rubble that once had been the street where until the night he had been the only resident. He came to the pavement and stumbled by bricked road and fell on the cold buzz rail. He had no power to stand up because the cold or deadly tiredness.
The huge one-eyed metal and glass monster ran along the streets with hard roar. Its engines moaned, taking the hill, then relaxed than run down with its second carriage waving side by side like a tail. It was running blinding everything what was in front it and disturbing the still dreaming city. It entered with scream to the last turn. The rails didn't buzz now. They trembled and jumped. The dog still lay down. He didn't fear the end of all. It didn't matter. He had nothing more to lose. But instantly the roar finished became too silent. He thought that he doesn't exist now and he's far away from his blooded and lacerated body. Just there were no pain that he expected last seconds of his life. He found it's strange.
The strong voice breaks this deadly silence like a glass bottle crashing the brick:
'Hey! Stand up! Don't lie here!'
He opened his eyes and stood up obediently. He was amazed and forgot about deadly tiredness and the chill. It was the first time when he heard something addressing to him since he lost his owner.
He walked slowly down the street that leading maybe to the forever that engulfed his owner.