Disclaimer.
This story is about sportswear and mud and is aimed at the WAM community. It is fiction and any resemblance to persons past or present is purely coincidental.

This is the third short story in the 'Bad Animal' Trilogy - three losely connected stories posted across three different sites about situations caused by animals that result in the loss of sneakers (and also featuring WAM and destruction). Check out www.stories.emd.rip for links to all of them!

Here Boy!

"Ben!" I bellowed into the cool Spring morning air. "Ben! Get back here now!"

For the outsider looking in, this would undoubtedly be quite the comical scene; on the left side of the screen, a slightly out of shape and very out of breath person of dubious athletic prowess running across a dew covered field shouting 'Ben!', while a very fast moving dog disappeared off the right hand side.

And yes, my dog is named Ben.

The Nike tracksuit was an aspiration to what I wanted to be rather than demonstrating any level of fitness. Although, to be fair, Ben had four legs and I only had two, but of course I was wearing trainers that should help me and he did not. A nice pair of hyperblue Nike tns to be precise, which nicely paired with the tracksuit. If I couldn't be athletic I was damn sure I was going to coordinate!

Crouching slightly, my hands rested on my thighs, I drew in sharp gulps of air that burned the back of my throat. I cursed that stupid rabbit that had caught the attention of my stupid drooling mutt. I have to say I am very impressed with the speed of the rabbit, less impressed that Ben shot off after it, tongue lolling around as he bounded away from me.

It was about then that I realised that my phone was no longer in my pocket. In fact nor were my car or house keys.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I yelled, causing several birds to fly off in panic at the commotion. The question was, do I catch the dog or go find the keys, wallet and phone? I had proven that I couldn't do the former and the keys would be required to get home.

I had backtracked a few minutes and spotted my house keys just at the side of the path. Then, almost immediately, my phone, lying a metre or so off the edge of the path down a slight slope. It was face up and not cracked as far as I could tell, which was the first bit of luck I'd had today. I quickly darted across to it but as I put my left foot down, it suddenly sunk into the soft mud.

"Fuck!" I cursed as the mud enveloped my leg up to my shin, my purposeful stride seemingly having made matters worse. I tried to pull my foot up but it was barely moving. I grabbed my leg with both hands and pulled hard which resulted in more movement. Encouraged and on the count of three (no, I have no idea why either), I pulled as hard as I could. There was a huge sloppy pop as my foot unexpectedly released with ease, throwing me completely off balance. After an initial sideways motion I toppled over forwards and although I managed to get my hands out in front of me to break the fall they just sunk into the cold mud. The result was the slowest faceplant in history.

After thrashing around like a fish on the harbourside I managed to get an arm free and use that to extricate the other one. Gingerly kneeling on what appeared to be a mostly solid piece of ground next to a tree, I looked down to see my white Nike baseball cap stuck up, peak embedded in the goo. The front of my tracksuit, from head to toe, and both arms were caked in mud, as was my face.

I stood up, realising that although my foot made it out of the mud, my shoe had not. My white football sock was no longer white and the other Nike tn was slathered in thick mud too. My thoughts turned to the rest of the Nike England football kit I was wearing underneath the tracksuit, hoping the nylon covering would afford some protection.

I looked around for the hole where my leg had once been, but in all the commotion it had sealed back up. My phone was nowhere to be seen either. I cursed under my breath and looked back to the path which was now well over two metres away. I had no idea which areas in front of me were safe or would swallow me up again. I didn't want to go through that again. In truth it had been a bit worrying; what if I hadn't been able to free myself?

Now, the thing I learned in this whole sorry tale is that the human brain makes extremely bad choices when in stressful situations. Spectacularly bad in fact. In this case it decided that the best course of action was to shimmy up the tree, then across the branch that hung over the path and lower myself down to safety. This appeared to be based on several successful tree climbing attempts when I was in primary school while completely ignoring the last time that I climbed a tree while at university, which resulted in a broken arm.

So up the tree I started. A task made more difficult by (a) the fact I was covered in mud, (b) I only had one trainer on, (c) it was cold but mostly because (d) I was far too old to be climbing up trees. This fact became readily apparent as I was puffing and panting resting on the first major branch in my ascent. It also looked a lot higher looking down then it did looking up. Still, I was nothing if not stubborn...

As I approached the branch I needed I lost my footing. I quickly hugged the trunk to try to arrest my descent, only to be met with a loud tearing noise. I managed to get my foot on a small branch and steady myself. It appeared that a stub of a branch had caught on my track top, puncturing through it and causing a tear from bottom to top. It had probably slowed my fall in all honesty and given me the chance to recover, but it now billowed pathetically, exposing my white top below and held together by just the sturdier hem and collar.

I resumed my climb, making it to the required branch and then edging across it until I was over the path. It was a lot further down to the path than I had hoped, and it was about now it was confirmed that this plan was complete bobbins. Utterly ridiculous. However, there was no going back now.

I swung one leg over and tried to reach for the ground to find I was quite a long way short. It looked like I'd need to lower myself from the branch, let go and gracefully land on Terra Firma. Well, that's how I imagined it. Reality was somewhat different however.

As I repositioned myself there was a terrible cracking noise and the branch snapped. The jagged end went through the large hole in my jacket and ripped through the back. The rest of the branch fell to the ground leaving me suspended in the air, my feet dangling pathetically about a metre above the ground. I was stuck; I couldn't lift my arms up to free the jacket. I tried waggling my feet to dislodge my top from the broken branch to no avail.

I sighed and transferred my house keys from my track top to the bottoms and then unzipped the top, imagining a simple drop to the ground. Well, that happened, but I landed on my toes and with the weight of my thick ol' head, momentum carried me forward over the steeper embankment on the other side of the path.

I crashed through the brambles and stout shrubby trees at an uncontrollable pace, their sharp fingers clawing at me. Before I could stop it happening, they had grabbed my track pants and pulled them down. I just managed to hold onto my shorts but the bottoms were gone, together with my other trainer, stolen and held captive in a thorny prison.

Out of the thicket, I continued to slide down the bank, twisting and turning in the muck, my pristine white England football kit now just a mud and grass stained mess. The bottom of the slope arrived and spat me out into the silt and alluvium of the small stream below with a resounding 'splat'.

I stared up at the sky above, the tree branches hanging over me. I could feel the sludge in my hair and just about everywhere else. Exhausted and defeated, I shut my eyes.

I don't know if I passed out or fell asleep but I was roused by short repeated warm sensations across my face. I opened my eyes to see a huge nose staring down at me, the head it was attached cocked inquisitively to one side.

"Oh, you're back then?"

The only response was for him to drool all over my face.

"Aww, for fuck's sake, you hideous mutt!"

I pulled myself up and my stupid dog bounded around in the mud; we were both definitely going to need a shower when we got home. I looked up at the bank and couldn't really see where my pants were. Even though they held my house keys I didn't fancy climbing back up the bank and fighting through the thorns. Hell, I wasn't really sure if I could climb back up there.

I sighed again. No house keys, no car keys and no phone. I had no choice but to walk the mile or so back to my street, wearing just football gear caked in mud and no trainers. Then I would have the igmony of calling on my neighbour to pick up my spare keys. I already knew he wouldn't give me the keys until he taken some photos. And then he would share then to all our mutual friends. I would never live this down. Why on earth didn't I just give my keys to very nice Mrs Gilbert at number 42 who had no comprehension what a digital camera or smartphone was?

I sighed a third time, looking down with my eyes narrowed at my troublesome, but faithful friend. I couldn't stay angry at him for long, and my face softened as his big dopey face looked up at me.

"Well boy, this is another fine mess you've got us into."

I took the muddy lead that dangled from his collar and we began the long trudge home to the humiliation that awaited.

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