I actually found this lying around on my computer from a while back and would much appreciate any reviews and critiques people can give to help me improve it! 
Thanks in advance!
Bubbles was the first to go.
I had begged and begged my mum for a pet , any pet at all I’d pleaded. Seven years old is not when you’ve reached the height of responsibility but you have to start sometime, and when I dragged her to the fair that summer I had fallen in love with those big googly eyes in a second. It took a lot of wheedling and more than a few tears but she did eventually relent and I couldn’t help but bounce eagerly on the spot as the man behind the counter passed over my dear Bubbles in a water-filled plastic bag. I held him up, eye to eye, and nodded my head, satisfied. He was to be my friend, my confidant. He alone would know all my deepest secrets and I could trust that he would never tell another soul. I could even train him, perhaps persuade him to swim through hoops on command and twirl in complicated dance routines- he could be entered into contests! All would be jealous of my amazing acrobatic Bubbles.
Bursting with pride I held the top of the bag tightly in my small clenched fist, everything seeming that much brighter on the walk home. We had no fish bowl yet but that was to be fixed first thing in the morning, until then the large mixing bowl from the kitchen would be his accommodation. I remember talking to him as I was drifting off to sleep that night, whispers of his great future and what good care I’d take of him. It was one of the most fantastic feelings I had ever experienced, having this little life to take care of. I fell to sleep as happy as I had ever been and my dreams were filled with possibilities of me and my fish.
By morning he was dead.
No-one knew why, it was ’just one of those things’ my dad comforted. I cried and cried till I was all cried out- then I started up my wheedling again for the next pet. Little did I know that Bubbles was just the beginning. There was Jeremy, the next fish, he lasted two hours. Then Polo the gerbil, I think that was two days. Sandy and Twiglet, guinea pigs- thirteen hours, Sully the snake- six, Rhino the lizard- twenty seven, Pinkie the mouse- fifteen. I think we stopped then. It was getting too much really, who has eight pets who all die in no more than forty eight hours?! I convinced myself I was cursed and refused to pet or even go near any of my friends animals. As much as my parents consoled me, they were a little suspicious themselves. It was awful. The thing is, I loved animals. I longed and longed just to have one that would stay alive. Alas, it was not meant to be. I pushed my dream of pets far into the back of my mind through the rest of my adolescence and focused on getting good grades, finding a nice job and eventually renting my own flat.
I was twenty five and worked as a secretary for a large corporation- Finley and Sons- that, well I’m not really sure what it was they did. No doubt something that made heaps of money. I got quite good pay, enough to live on anyway and still have a treat every once in a while. My friends knew all about my ’curse’ and it was a topic that was very much avoided in conversation. It was my odd thing, my ‘problem’, and I doubt they really believed me.
Sarah, though, was my new flat mate and she was not primed on my past seeing as we had only been living together for a couple of weeks. She was nice, very, very cheerful which would obviously get on my nerves in future but not so much yet. We were still in the ‘getting-to-know-you’ stage of friendship and had arranged a meet up at Starbucks to have a chat and secretly pry into each others past and private lives (as is natural really in new relationships, I didn’t want to be living with a serial killer or someone who pinches your clothes and returns them three months later, but that’s not the sort of thing you can just come out and ask without having a drink together first).
It was when we were out with our coffees in mid-rant about the old man next door who smells a bit strange, when I noticed him. We were sitting outside on fold out chairs and gazing at the busy people passing by on a Saturday lunch time, the sun making a valiant effort to break through the clouds.
“Hey, do you know that dog? He’s staring at you.”
I looked round. There was a medium to large sized dog sitting on the curb and he certainly was looking at me, but I had never seen him before in my life.
“Nope, he hasn’t got a collar though, he must be a stray,” I said, instantly feeling a little dip in my stomach. I hated seeing poor stray dogs, scrounging in the rubbish bins. It made my heart break.
“Awww poor thing! Come here boy, come on.” Sarah patted her leg and put on a baby voice that people often use to talk to pets.
“No! Don’t!” I cried in panic as he happily padded over to us.
Sarah gave me a strange look “What’s up?” She asked, petting his wedge shaped head.
“I’m… I’m….” (here came the awkward bit) “I’m cursed,” I admitted, preparing myself for her reaction.
“What?”
“I’m cursed! Every pet I have ever had has died within two days of me taking them home. I’ve had eight pets and all of them dead!”
There was a bit of a silence in which both Sarah and the stray peered at me curiously.
“Well, umm, maybe things have changed?” Sarah suggested hesitantly. “I mean, this one looks fine doesn’t he?”
“Well, now he does! Not for long though if he stays around me,” I said, feeling again that rush of longing to just reach out and stroke him.
Sarah gave him one last tickle behind the ears. “OK, well if you think so, we’ll just get him to go,” she said to me, then turning to the dog and making shooing motions “Go on! Sorry boy, scoot!”
He sat there, cocking his head to one side in such a way that you just knew he was thinking ’crazy lady, what’s she doing that for?’. He almost made me laugh it was so comical. He really was quite beautiful too, not in that ’pretty puppy’ way but in a cheeky, ’unique’ one. He was a muddy brown and his fur a bit ruffed up with specks of leaves and soil all over his back as if he had been rolling around in them (which he probably had been). He had crinkly soft ears that looked a little lighter than the rest of him- a sort of caramel colour, a large snout with a pink heart nose and a tail that made wagging look like an Olympic sport. I was instantly in-love and that just made me all the more certain that he had to leave. So far I had not managed to kill a dog, my parents never dared to risk it, but I really didn’t want to start with him.
Sarah was having a bit of trouble getting him to go, now resorting to actually pushing him away. He stayed stock still, if anything curious as to what was happening, not in the slight bit offended. I sighed. “Perhaps we should move? We could go inside where he couldn’t follow, its getting a bit colder now anyway.”
We picked up our mugs and moved back indoors, the dog watching mournfully after us as we left. Sarah was looking at me as I glanced over my shoulder to see his sad little face. “You really think you ‘re cursed don’t you, I mean it's not just a ploy to keep away from animals and not seem like a jerk,” she commented thoughtfully.
“I love animals. Believe me, I’m really cursed.”
After that I couldn’t keep his puppy dog eyes out of my mind. All the longing I’d had for a pet had been unlocked and now just came flooding out everywhere I went. It was like a maternal instinct, I just wanted something cuddly to love and love me in return, no questions asked. Whenever I pictured myself walking my very own dog, I imagined him as that dog we’d met outside Starbucks. He would have been perfect.
It was in the middle of one of these daydreams as I was eating my lunch in the park nearest my work on my break, that I saw him again. I jumped, and, I’m ashamed to admit, actually screamed. It was as if the ghost I had been thinking about for the past week had been brought back to life. He looked exactly like before, and he was right in front of me with the same staring act and his tail thumping loudly on the ground.
“No, no, no, you have to leave,” I said, whispering so as not to alarm a jogger passing by. He looked at me dolefully (the dog that is, not the jogger) and, to my horror, shuffled a little closer. “Stop! Stay where you are! You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into!” He ignored me and started to trot over, tongue lolling out in a fashion that made him look as if he were grinning. “Back!” I cried, the jogger now shooting me disturbed glances.
I leaped up and actually ran away, my half eaten sandwich left discarded on the bench. I didn’t look back as I literally sprinted all the way to my work building, diving inside and resting with my back to the door like people do in scary movies after escaping from an axe wielding maniac. I panted like I had run the marathon (I’m not too fit) and held my hand to my heart as it pounded loudly in my chest. It wasn’t just the unexpected exercise, it was how terrified I had felt. I was fond of that dog, in any other circumstances I would have been completely besotted with it. But if I so much as touched him I was sure he would die. And how could I live with myself having killed such a wonderful creature?
Once I had finished my work that day I hesitantly walked out of the building, as if I were a spy in James Bond, peering round each corner and snapping my head back and forth at every step I took. I was crossing the road, just two minutes away from my house, when I spotted his muddy fur and crinkly ears. I felt like crying. He was waiting on the opposite side, looking happy and loving and I was frozen, my fear leaping back into my throat. I swivelled on the spot and was half running, half jumping in the direction I had come from when I heard a loud horn. I turned and everything started to move in slow motion. The dog had followed me out, he was stood in the middle of the road and cars were whizzing past. A bicycle was heading straight for him, and the poor man upon it, seeing him swerved just in time. He zoomed into an old lady pushing her Zimmer frame slowly along the pavement and she in turn collapsed into the fruit and veg stall. Melons were sent rolling in all directions and it was like human skittles as passers by were bowled over.
It was straight out of a cartoon, just so surreal. And there the dog was, now coming to stand beside me, completely unharmed. He had actually managed to hurt nearly everyone else in the vicinity and still not have a scratch on him. He looked up at me and licked my outstretched hand enthusiastically. I smiled, a warm fuzzy feeling growing.
“I’m going to call you Lucky.”
Thanks for reading!
