Fiction Desk
One morning a brown dog was munching noisily at the scrapes of food left on the road. The dog was carrying this out with great attention and while it did so saliva wetted his lips. The dog ran the tongue on his lips relishing the waste food of chicken bones , loaves of bread, and cooked potatoes. From some distance, a group of dogs looked fiercely at him and ran to snatch the food. The dogs had a fight and managed to take away some portion of the food and within some time the whole scene turned into a big fighting ring resonating with loud barks. It was after a while that some calm was restored in the area and the dogs began to disperse. After few hours two of the dogs in the group, who were friends, fell into a talk. “These are very tough times,” began the brown one. The other dog who was of similar age and black in color nodded in agreement as the saliva dripped from his mouth. ” Yes indeed,” he said. ” I slept on an empty stomach yesterday. If the conditions remain like this, we would starve,” the brown one added. “I heard the government will tax those people who are keeping dogs. Where will these humans go? Their worries will multiply. That old bitch who wore bright dresses will find herself in miserable condition. Her cozy life will not last long now. She had been eating delicious food and put on a lot of fat eating cakes and cheese preparations. Her master will throw her out of his house.”” I heard the government will impose a tax on bones at the cost of fertilizers.”
“Why will it do so? How is it even possible that the bones can be taxed at the cost of fertilizers?”
“The government thinks that the end product of bones is fertilizers. It has devised a new tax called value tax.” “What is that tax? I have never heard of it before.”
“It means the tax gets more value for the tax itself. The tax adds tax. It is like compound interest.”
“Oh, I see? But that would make people poor and there will be less food left for us. “
” Yes indeed. We would starve to death,” the brown dog said sobbing.
As they were talking a man hurled a stone at the dogs breaking up their conference. The dogs wagged their tales before leaving from the spot and barked widely to mark their ceremonial retreat.