The Art of Breakdown Encouragement

One tug and the world collapsed.

The motherload of sausage poured out of the vent. Legs akimbo as each writhing dog struggled to stabilize. One after another. They doubled down on the double dumping of dog meat. Ears fluttering. Noses twitching. Eyes wide.

The little men in the fridge digging for cheese discovered the sock pile. Crammed tight and wedged between the aubergine and the ham. It didn’t take long for the excavated socks to be added to the motherload.

Socks and dogs. Dogs in socks. Sausage meat in fridge. Doggy sausage meeting socks. Sugar will be created from the bitter tears that ran saltily down the canine faces.

It was the night before camp and a flamingo was being tortured.

The children laughed as the bird flapped shrieking for help. More dogs piled on. The room was filling fast. The endodontic tissue was exposed. The dogs howled. The socks stacked upon the jumble of congealed darning fresh with canine spit. A slobbery mass of knitwear ill-suited for the breeding class of mongrels.

“Make it stop.”

The representative for the House of Moving Eyebrows declined. He glanced at his watch noting the time. It wouldn’t be long. He cranked the volume dial to ten and readjusted his earplugs.

The little men in the fridge morphed into sausage dogs and back again. Their noses extended as they pitchforked the socks, flinging the garments at the dogs. The room was almost at capacity. The noise level was unbearable. The sound of socks crashing into sausage dogs crashing into a meat grinder constructed a screeching sound not of this world.

And still, the children turned the handle in delight.

The flamingo screamed a hideous noise. It’s mouth-wide consuming sausage dogs and half-eaten socks and little men from a fridge mining for cheese.

Teeth chattered in a rhythmic dance to the screams of the tortured flamingo.

The man broke on the hour, as predicted.

Huge, heaving sobs.

The representative for the House of Moving Eyebrows checked his watch and pressed the ‘Stop’ button. He noted the time on a sheet and declared the session complete to no one in particular.

It was a masterclass in the art of breakdown encouragement. This time he hoped, it would lead to a promotion.