Storytelling Week 4: The Story of the Second Old Man and the Two Black Dogs

You see these two dogs that follow me around, they used to me my brothers. About ten years ago, after they had fallen into some bad luck with the wrong crowd up in Chicago, we decided to take a nice long trip on down to New Orleans. Once we got there, we bought a boat and became fishermen. The boat was old, but it worked well and even had enough for us all to be somewhat comfortable.

Our business was good enough and being out on the water all day made it easier to stay away from anyone who might happen to know our friends from the windy city.

One day, as we were bringing in our catch to the pier, a beautiful girl caught my eye. Her clothes were dirty and old, but something about the way she looked at me made me feel alive. Obviously, being the man that I am, I went up to her and offered to buy her dinner. She agreed of course, and we went to dinner and stayed talking in the restaurant until they kicked us out. I was in love.

The next day, she appeared again, but in nicer clothes and wearing strange jewelry I had never seen. She told me that she wanted to be my wife and that she wanted to go with me on my year-long fishing trip. I knew I was in love and I agreed immediately, however I did not even bother asking my brothers, they were just going to have to accept our new member of the family.

Over the next couple of months, we travelled from port to port, selling our catch. As time went on, I grew more in love and my brothers grew more in their jealousy of my wife and me. During a tropical storm one night, they came into our room, wrapped us in our sheets, and threw us overboard to drown.

I thought for sure we would die, but my wife muttered some strange words, and suddenly we were back on the pier in New Orleans. I was dumbstruck and asked what had happened. My wife was furious and said that she was going to use all the voodoo she knew to find and kill my brothers. Obviously, her being a voodoo queen had never crossed my mind, but at that moment I got over that shock and begged for my brother’s lives. I told her that she needed to punish them but not to take their lives.

In the end, she cast a spell that turned them into two useless, fat, black dogs that could never leave this small town. After ten years, they would be returned to their human forms but would still not be able to leave town. The ten years is almost up and soon my brothers will be able to take care of themselves. I will be reunited with my wife in New Orleans and never be bothered again by their stupid decisions. Now, isn’t that just the craziest story if you ever did hear one?

Author's Note: This story is actually still pretty much the same as the Arabian Nights version except I set it in the US. I figured that it would work the same in modern times if I used a voodoo queen instead of a fairy and got the brothers to have more troubles with the law rather than poor business decisions. Also, I decided to keep the first person storytelling since this belongs in a story within a story. 

Bibliography: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by H.J. Ford. 1898. http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/arabian-nights-two-black-dogs.html

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