Dog J-Loop need a good head clean. Hungry worms crawling around inside his skull, making his mind go itchy. Bad enough scratching mad on the streets of Manchester. Bad enough with his Mistress selling copies of the Big Biscuit, and her saying all the time, 'What's wrong with you these days, J-Loop? You're supposed to look boneless and homeless, not rabid and stupid!' Worse still that the good Whistle not working, because all them worms got to it. Whistle is one smart bone-ticket to the intersnout. Mistress feeds your jaws with Whistle. Then you can talk to her, through the inter-snout. Bad enough to lose the sharing, but worst of all that J-Loop's music starting to come up wrong.
J-Loop a robodog DJ at Howling Club, slipping latest Dogga tunes into the collective head of the cross-bred pack down on the floor. That night the whole pack-net very nearly collapsing when J-Loop misses a beat in his brain due to the worm invasion. Money-sucker bossman of the Howling, shouting down the DJ for the mishap.
Trotting home to Mistress-comfort.
'Dear pet, what is it?' Soft hands of the Mistress stroking all along his fur. J-Loop managing just enough intersnout to sniff the gist.
'Me got the worms, Mistress.' Hoping these ragged growls make up sense.
'Oh my poor doggy!'
Nanoworms being the fear of every good mistress; a curly intruder that make a robodog want to go off-string, being the urge to run weird.
'Oh my poorest doggy!' Mistress tugging tight on the string that binds their love together. 'Please don't leave me!'
But J-Loop no longer understanding the words, only the stroking hands. Makes for one urgent need to get the laundry done. The trouble being that J-Loop never cleaned his head before. Idea of it scary, because his tune-spinning at the Howling Club is only bootleg money. According to the Authorities, J-Loop is purely a jobless dog, linked up direct to the Basic Bones Allowance. Well known the Authorities make real cheap head-cleaning jobs of basic boners. Which laundry involves losing your robo-brain to the wave-kennel, whilst the cleaners make up new edition. Pack-rumours telling of how some dogs die in the process, it being a moment of losing your way. Scary losing of the way to a street-honed robodog.
'Loopy, don't you go being no mudpuppy now,' Princess Lickety snarls at him. She's one sleek robobitch at the Howling Club. 'Us dogness stick together, you catch the ball?'
Catching the ball real good, because dog-to-dog being his only intersnout since the worms came calling, and two days later Dog J-Loop sauntering out of the Town Hall, quite merry on the end of Mistress string, freshly laundered brain in his head. No worms, no nothing. J-Loop feel dog-ambient! Pair of them set up street-camp, J-Loop adopting perfect begging mode: front paws crossed just so, plaintive look in dewy eyes, fur raised in bristles against Manchester rain. Mistress starting out her melancholic selling-chant: 'Please help the homeless! Buy the Big Biscuit. Only fifty-four pounds!' And it's exactly now that J-Loop gets the calclass="underline" yearning voice inside his brain. This no worm-sickness, this no itching; voice being strong and passionate. Constant hungering.
J-Loop goes off-string. Tugging string loose from his Mistress fingers. Running free, desperate cry chasing but no contest. Like, going weird in greyhound style!
Rain-drenched and guided, stranger's voice pointing the nose-way, fifty minutes later J-Loop arrives in Southly Poshtown. Voice making the dog scratch his claws against the front door of a big manhouse. Young girl opens the door, takes one look at J-Loop, starts to scream: 'Noodles! You've come home!'
Noodles? thinks J-Loop: Who the fuck this Noodles?
'Mummy, Noodles has come back to us!' young girl shouts back into the house, and then she's dragging J-Loop inside behind her, tugging hard on loose string.
Seven weeks, J-Loop lives a canine-prince of a Poshtown life: warm blankets, juicy steaks, ultra-flea powder, his very own platform boot to chew on. Each day at play with the young girl, and swallowing lots of good Whistle-bone but making only sniffing visits to intersnout. Not knowing what to say. Each night sleeping by the embers of dying fire.
Each night to dream a doggy-dream.
To let the floating voice of Noodles give free howl to final moments; the shivering to stillness of canine brain inside the Town Hall doggy-bath. Each and every night, the repeated death of the robo-poshdog inside him: J-Loop feeling possessed by story. How Noodles had died during his high-class head-clean; how a bone-whisper of his doggy-mind keeping alive inside the kennel-waves. Like embers of dying fire, yes? How Noodles had waiting and waiting to do before J-Loop came for his clean-up: another black robodog! Exact same Labrador model! Slightly downmarket but no time for choices. How Noodles's pedigree patterns had slithered through the waves, straight into J-Loop's brain.
Seven weeks passing by, this nightmare stupid dog inside of J-Loop, never leaving him no peace! Seven weeks, the stupid games of second-rate Mistress; cloying warmth, wet meat, platform boot leaving too many sequins in the mouth. Oh-so-tight leather collar around his chafing neck! Too much. Too chafing much! Seven weeks then J-Loop gets up one night, snuffles around twisting backdoor key in front paws, full robo-mode.
Door against superdog. No wailing contest!
Running the streets of Manchester, old-time memories: rain and piss and rancid cats to chase. Noodles howling upside his head, demanding his whereabouts. 'Catch this ball, Noodle-brain!' Dog-to-dog intersnout talking. 'J-Loop in charge of the two-pack.'
Noodles only a growling at the edges then. Belly up.
Back to the old ground, early morning: there's the old Mistress, newly issued robodog on the end of her latest string. J-Loop feeling down to dirt from the sniffing of this but still making a keening goodbye from across the way. Got my own trip to make, Mistress. Sell some Biscuit! Hoping this got through. Then trotting over to Howling Club to find the Princess Lickety, tied to a table leg. 'You want to go off-string, good robobitch?' snarls J-Loop.
Well weird and travelling. The three of them, J-Loop and the Princess and the Noodles inside, running away from Manchester's clutches. Paw to paw to paw they scamper, outlanding to where the smell of fresh meat plays above the city's gates. Sniffing at freedom's tang, making homeless home beneath the sparkle stars.
You catch this ball yet?
This little story being told by J-Loop himself, his ravenous dogself.
DUB WEIRD