Louie's Gift and Mort's Mysterious Trunk

By Robert Lee Johnston

"Louie loved gifts."

Louie found himself alone and saw what nobody had ever seen. And Mort had never met anybody like Louie before; he had endured an eternity of isolation and loneliness.

Louie simp

• Language: English
• Publisher: RC Management and Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987397916

Robert Lee Johnston

As a commercial white water rafting guide, the coolest job in Australia; my office was the wild rapids, rivers, waterfalls and rain forests of Far North Queensland. The highest rainfall in Australia supplies a steady flow of flooding white water and endless thrill-seeking customers.I was badly injured, on river, just over ten years ago. And I will never raft professionally again.It was when I was transformed throughout the healing process that I wholly embraced anger, pain and hatred. I gave to my pain, a name. I gave to agony and suffering, human faces. I started to write when I was tortured or angered. And found out years later my writing was a very accurate account of those emotions. Love was especially hard to see or sense from my then unenviable low vantage point. But it was definitely love and patience that helped the most. I believed, to win, to finally beat pain, I must fight it, be angry at it, become insular, inward and surly. It took many years to succumb and stubbornly change my tune. I wish I could say nobody close to me got hurt or disappointed, but that would be a lie.I still live in the house that my wife and I built on a thirty-acre farm that we scratched out within the tropical embrace of Queensland's two tallest mountains. Alongside the farm a moody, cantankerous river winds its way into the coral sea.

Book preview

Chapter One

THE EXITING

Louie was black. Black as a moonless night. Louie was glossy and shone brighter than a bucketful of coal oil.

He was three years old and in the prime of his life. When Louie stood beside you, you didn’t need to bend to pat his huge, impressive head or powerful shoulders. He weighed eighty kilos and was muscular as a seasoned body builder. As a blue-eyed puppy, he was intrigued by a noisy whipper-snipper and ventured closer to investigate. Sadly, he got a little too excited, and a little too close. From that day forward a bright-pink scar stood out dramatically against his lustrous jowls. To contrast with the sheen of his short, shiny black hair, a large, bright-pink, heart-shaped name tag on a florescent-pink leather collar stood out brightly around his trunk-sized neck.

Louie was intimidating to see at first, scary looking and tough, but an incredibly gentle creature. Very much aware of his presence and size, he was careful and mindful of his panther-like strength and power. Louie was immensely brave and almost fearless. Many dogs were instantly in awe when they saw the giant Louie. Some retreated and became timid. Others used their initial surprise and fears to present aggression. To reduce his size, Louie always sat, making himself smaller and skinnier by sucking all his muscles in. He sat without fuss, unafraid, passively, then gazed gently towards the dog that was alarmed to meet him. Louie bared no teeth, even when the other dog was bile and gnashing froth. Louie’s response to such aggression? That of an elephant being bitten on the bum by a mosquito. Louie would exhale, give an unflinching sigh, and a wry smile that said, ‘Really? Look at the size of me, fulla.’ Louie was a heavyweight Samoan bouncer calmly settling down a skinny, plucky, drunken jockey.

No man could blame any of their dogs for their startled responses. Sometimes the owners of those dogs were just as confronted as their four-legged mates. Meeting Bigfoot would have been easier to digest for many people. Louie’s balls alone were the size of two clanging church bells. His forearms were wider than a man’s, his head was as large as a bullocks, very triangular, and much heavier than a human’s. His strength was proportionate, though perhaps greater than most adult male humans his weight. The only thing larger than Louie’s balls and magnificently gallant head was his appetite. Louie loved all sorts of food. All food, in fact, and he had a unique predilection for red wine, grapes, and olives. Perhaps a testament to his ancestor’s original Italian blood lines and Cane Corso’s Motherland. When Louie strode, every muscle in his body popped, heaved, and exploded. He had muscles upon muscle, the same consistency and density as the Titanic’s anchor. Veins, large twisting pythons, wrapped and throbbed around his body. When he stretched, front legs extended, leaning back into his hind haunches, muscles rippled, twitched, and tensed. Blood filled them like fat, thirsty leeches.

One day he was excited and ran past his owner in high-minded joy. He clipped the man’s leg on the way past. Louie didn’t miss a step, but his master was sure a flying anvil had just collided with him.

Soon he became a trusted warm favourite of all dog owners that they met on their daily walks, their children, and his dog friends. His handsome, calm stoicism fast created a fan base of pats and compliments that Louie adored. Those who baulked first at him, those who confused him for a steely-eyed jungle cat, both canine and human, were soon his greatest, dedicated, most trusting fans. Any bad first impression disappeared once they got to know the wonderful, big-faced, warm gargantuan. In three years of life and daily walks he had never been in a single dog fight. Every dog he met, he could calm. Barbaric, ruthless dogs were soothed and peacefully defused. Louie had the same effect on his master and fellow humans alike. Being friends with Louie was very easy as he was calm, gentle, and mellow as the colour yellow. Predictable, safe, stable, well-adjusted, and in complete adoration of his best friend, his master.

His master was an older gentleman who shared the same physical traits and glossy skin tone as Louie. A big man, with a bright bolt of thick silver hair, his owner must have weighed one hundred and twenty kilos.

On this day, Louie, and his master’s body, lay still and motionless on the carpeted floor. Louie had been beside the man the whole duration. He hadn’t left his side once for two days and two long nights. Louie knew his owner had died. He had seen the moment he clutched at his chest and dropped slowly to one knee, then the other, and, very soon thereafter, the floor. Louie helped support his friend’s weight by moving his granite head and dependable shoulders under his armpit and supporting his master whilst he knelt, lightheaded. When he fell forward there was nothing for Louie to do other than to soften his fall. His owner had died before his head touched the carpet. Louie bit hard onto his shirt collar and pulled, rolling the man over onto his back, licking the man’s face with his wet, pink, hippopotamus sized tongue.

Louie fretted and moaned, and then, from the very centre of his being and with gut-wrenching focus, he barked loudly, three times, a triplet of decibels, into his owner’s face and ear to catch his attention. Louie sat and then lay beside his master. Two days passed, and Louie had not eaten in that time. He could not leave his friend for a single moment, not even to drink, so protective, loyal, and loving was he. Louie was a dying custodian, a defeated carer, eroding slowly and painfully. Louie’s body required a small hill of calories and a beer barrel of water each day to function. As the night brought sleep to Louie, he would not see another. He knew it and did not mind dying to be with his friend and only family. As the sun rose, Louie was suffering. He was weak, hungry. His organs pained and began to shut down. His mind was muddled from thirst and heartbreak. Not much longer, he thought to himself as he closed his eyes.

Mort was late for the exiting of Louie’s master, and when he entered the tidy room, he was saddened by the sight of such a magnificent creature and his beloved master together.

Louie opened his exhausted, dying eyes and growled like an angry buzz-saw at Mort. Louie saw an old man in the room. Incredibly old. He wore a tattered brown trench coat. A squeaking sound caught Louie’s attention first. It was a loud, squeaky wheel. The elderly man pulled an iron T-bar handle, hooked to a four-wheeled trolley. It was industrial, much larger, and wider than a child’s toy trolley. So rusty and dented, it was hard for Louie to tell what colour it was. So rusty it had no original paint or other colour to it.

Resting upon the trolley, occupying all available space, was a large, rectangular, heavy timber trunk. The trunk was in worse condition than the trolley that hauled it. It was wooden, with delamination’s, splits, and scratches, both deep and shallow. There were ancient stains, spilt paints, and uncountable scuff marks. The trunk’s dark, distressed corners were no longer crisp or pointed, but smooth, rounded, and blunt from time, exposure, and travels. The trunk had no sharp distinctive features. It looked weighty and very thick walled. No lock adorned his trunk.

Mort was startled by the sheer volume of Louie’s growl. Then just as startled at the realisation that the dog could see him. Mort paused, shocked for a moment. A moment was needed to comprehend his externalisation. Nobody, not one single soul, alive, or dead—and certainly no single animal—had ever laid eyes on Mort. And here, right now, this dog, a black dog, a dog whose pink name tag read Louie, acknowledged him, witnessed him. Mort stepped slowly sideways, and Louie’s gaze, growl and monolithic head followed him. He sat slowly upon his trunk, and Louie watched intently.

He spoke to Louie. ‘You can see me?’

Louie heard his voice, though the man’s mouth hadn’t moved. The voice Louie heard was clear in his head and he understood immediately. Louie answered, ‘I can see you’, in his mind, and was surprised to hear Mort respond.

‘How is this possible?’ The old man was both