Prologue

Welcome back to the story. Where last we left, I'd taken a trip around the city, showing you a few of the sights around the town and musing on the nature of my beloved city and its future.

The chapters are best read in the order "Straight Line", "Trespassing the Future", "First Sight", and "Trespassing".

This is part three.

III

I stood on the edge of the pier, contemplating what was to come next. Frankly, I was starting to get eager to head home. Tasking is fun and all that, but my evenings are all the free time I get, and I like to write, and curl up with a book and all that. But a walk along the waterfront in the summer is always nice, and I had bus fare, so anytime I got too tired I could cut up to Barrington and catch a ride home.

The waterfront is a fun place. It's predominantly a boardwalk of sorts, jutting out over the harbour itself, with every inch land-side populated with restaurants, shops, candy stores, and all sorts of things for locals and tourists alike to enjoy. I like biking along here on the Steed. The ground is nice and flat, and even though there's high pedestrian density, there's plenty of room, so I usually only hit a couple. And what with it being such a nice day- the harbour a glistening blue and the boardwalk alive with laughter, I decided there was little to no harm in an afternoon stroll to take the edge off a boring day at work.

No sooner had I rounded the corner than I saw something I hadn't expected. At first glance, it was a man carrying a laundry basket. He had all the makings of a classic punk- piercings all over, studded belt and wristbands, denim vest, pants with too many zippers. He was accompanied by a dog, a grey-and-black girl of a breed I didn't recognize. Cute in that special dog way, but tired-looking. The man himself seemed rather blue as well.

I was all prepared to ignore him as I usually ignore pedestrians, but the laundry basket was kind of bugging me, more so when he put it down and started laying its contents out on the ground. First a towel, then little brown lumps that rolled around before finally coming upright.

Then it hit me- puppies.



This man was walking around downtown Halifax with a basket full of puppies. What a wonderful thing. I wanted to laugh at the adorable whimsy of it all.

"Hey man", I shouted cheerily, "What's up with the puppies?"

I didn't have to wait long for an answer. The man reached into the bottom of the basket and pulled out a cardboard sign, propping it up against his hat, itself upturned to passersby.

Spare some change so I can go home and buy me and my dogs a meal. Every little bit helps. God bless.

Oh.

I wanted to give the man some change, I really did. I'm not the sort for handouts, I'd rather any donations go through charity organizations to make sure the money goes to the right places, and not into drug habits or the like. I feel iffy giving my money to people when I have no idea where it's going.

But, puppies, man.

Okay, there's more to it than that. The dogs were in pretty good shape, they didn't seem malnourished or diseased, so that's reason enough for me to believe that this guy really was collecting money for their benefit. I don't see many employed folks out panhandling, so I guess I had some evidence this guy was straight-up. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least.

But I didn't have any change. I'd dumped everything out into a bucket at Strange Adventures for the IWK Hospital in town a few days ago. I didn't have any hard currency on me.

But, puppies, man.

So I figured in a town this big, there's gotta be an ATM around. I'll take some cash, change it at one of the many shops, and drop a coin or two in the guy's hat. There was a hotel nearby- surely they'd have an ATM. I hopped the chain and started pounding dirt to get there.

Now, I'm torn, here. I want to go home. Every bit of me wants to go home. My brain is looking for any kind of justification to go home. I even happen to be running in the direction of home, which makes it even easier to cut and run.

But, puppies, man.

Look, I'm not trying to make a saint out of myself here. I'm not trying to make it look like I'll go to any lengths to give a buck to a panhandler. I won't. I'm not that good. In fact, I'm much worse than that. I'm stingy. I hate giving my money out to people, even when I'm getting something in return. I'm not even running because I'm worried the guy will leave. I'm running because I want to go home. I'm running because this is taking precious time out of my day, and I'm just trying to beat feet back to the homestead before the sun goes down. The fact is, I'm just a sucker for dogs. I love dogs, I love 'em to bits. If you've got a dog, bring it around, dogs are always welcome at my place. And I hate seeing them in bad situations. And puppies... well, puppies, man.



So I go to the hotel, head through the hallway to the ATM. No luck- the damn thing's busted. So I cut back down the hill, head into a local restaurant- no luck, it's down too. So I finally cut back across my path to a different restaurant, and finally find an ATM working. I pop my card in the slot, mash the OK button, and then that dreaded message pops up.



There's a two dollar service charge to withdraw from the ATM.

Well, fuck that.

See what I mean? Stingy.

So right now it's looking like I'm just going to cut my losses and head home. Buddy's been taking care of his dogs this long, he'll be alright. And there's plenty of people who'll go by, many of whom probably love dogs as much as I do.

But then I remember. I do have change.

Because I have bus fare.

So it was that I hopped back over the chain and dropped my ride home into the hat.

The guy looked up at me gratefully. "Thanks, man", he croaked, in the way panhandlers do.

"No problem", I said.

Then the task popped into my head.

"Uh, listen, man", I mumbled. "I just want to say, it makes me real glad to see you taking care of them, as opposed to, y'know, alternatives. I don't know how many people would go that distance for their dogs".

"Of course", he said, as if it were the plainest thing in the world. "They're my babies".

I finally asked the question that had been kicking around my head since I saw the little bundles roll out of his arms.

"Can I pet them?"



Their fur was soft, and they were wrinkly and floppy and warm. They sniffed and snuffled and licked at my fingers and followed my hand with their noses. They made little wheezy noises when I tickled their undersides and looked at my face with curious brown eyes that had never known malice.

They were everything puppies ought to be.

After a moment, I stood up to go, giving the puppies a final scratch behind the ears. "You take care of yourself", he said to me, as I left.

"You too", I called back. "You're a good guy".

Now, the cynics in you are going to say that this guy was probably an ordinary dude looking for a free handout, leveraging his, or his friends' dogs to play on people's sympathies and turn a quick buck.

Maybe. But a guy keeps dogs, well, maybe I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, now I had a problem- I had to get home, and I just donated my ride to puppies.

...

Eh, fuck it. For puppies, I can walk.


III.5

I can... but I didn't.

See, the thing is, if you are or have been a Dalhousie student, getting free bus rides is pretty simple. Dal students get a university bus pass, the cost of which is folded into your tuition. There are two stickers on your card- one for your U-Pass, indicating expiry (you have to get them renewed at the start of every term), and one denoting when it stops being a valid student ID. Cover the former, and as long as the latter is still valid, maybe eight in ten bus drivers won't give it a second glance.

My skills were a bit rusty (haven't done this since, oh, third year university), but I managed to bluff past one of the bus drivers and catch a ride across the bridge. I'll make it up to them one of these days.

Epilogue

We're almost to the end, fellow Players. See how this whole thing wrapped up in part four, "Trespassing".