After opening the curtains, Hemming headed into the small living room. It had a deep blue shag carpet that seemed to have turned into a wild jungle for little creatures, and a small round table against the wall upon which a wide television set was balanced precariously. Though Hemming had seen a few of these before, he had never really figured out what purpose they served. The boxes had to be for something, though, and surely their purpose was facilitated by their gray glass front and the few knobs that adorned its borders. He didn't pay the thing much attention, instead turning his eyes to a cluttered shelf that sat beside the television. Upon its dusty surface there were a few ceramic pig shaped things, a few other garish decorations, and, the most interesting to the wolf, a few piles of books and magazines. He picked up the top magazine in the pile, Modern Fly Fishing (dated July 1986), and had started to flip through its crinkly pages when Princess spoke out to him.
He looked over to her and squinted his eyes at the odd thing she was holding. Putting the magazine back on the shelf - whatever interesting qualities it had were trumped by the strange machine - he moved back into the kitchen, squatting beside the girl and starting at the little cogs as they spun. "I have absolutely no idea! How baffling," he replied, still watching the device with an intent curiosity. Perhaps somewhere in here there would be something that the machine acted upon, and from there they could piece the puzzle together and figure out what each part was.
Listening to the female's question, he nodded, and when she finished he gave a casual shrug. "I don't see what could be wrong with that... You want a bag? I'm sure there's one around here somewhere." Hemming thought for a moment before standing up and heading towards a little closet close to the front door. It was in a closet sort of like this one that he had found his own bag, now lost, and perhaps it was typical of humans to leave them in there. After opening the sliding door with a bit of difficulty, he flipped through the heavy coats in the closet, chortling a little at a few of them. There were no bags hanging up, and the wolf crouched down to inspect the bottom of the closet. There were quite a few shoes and heavy boots, and in the corner and hard to make out in the darkness, some sort of clothy thing that slightly resembled a bag. Pulling it out and holding it up, he looked to the girl with a questioning gaze.
Judging by the number of shoes, it was likely that there were a few more bags in the house. Perhaps this one was forgotten in the depths of the closet, or perhaps it was used the most and placed in the closet by the front door for convenience's sake, though Hemming didn't feel that reaching into the back of the closet was all that convenient. The motives of humans in these affairs would always be a mystery to the wolf. |