{"sf1_id":968892,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The Day the Music Died","author":"Billy Leigh","words":785,"posted_at":"2016-02-25T19:37:00.000Z","tags":["Border Collie","College","First Person","Foxhound","Friendship","Gay Relationships","M/M","Military","Music","Relationships","Short Story","Tragedy","War"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/968892-the-day-the-music-died","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/968892","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=968892\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"Daniel was a\nhandsome Foxhound, my first love in fact. I was a smaller and skinny looking Border\nCollie, which marked me out given the typical athletic stature of my breed. Yet Daniel always made me feel confident and happy. I remember it was a cold\nFebruary when we first met and I had been dragged to a community event\norganised by my mother. My parents were both influential canines in our town, my\nfather owned a factory that employed a lot of local furs, while my mother\norganised events for everyone to get together. Daniel's father worked for mine.\nHis family lived in a smaller house on the other side of the railway track and\nwe went to separate schools, but despite our differences, we became\ninseparable. As soon as we were alone for the first time, I whispered \"I want to hold your paw\", borrowing the\nline from a song I'd heard on the radio. Surprisingly, he said yes. Our\nfriendship grew from there and it soon developed into something more. The\nnature of our subsequent relationship was secret, but it was still fun. My\nparents were often out, my father busy with his job and my mother organising her\ncommunity events. Daniel came to my house after school with the excuse that I\nwas helping him with homework. However, we'd steal my brother's records and\ndance in the front room while everyone else was out of the house. We joked that\nwe would become famous one day and make our own music. It was risky since my\nmother disapproved of the music my brother owned, she would have thrown out his\nrecords had she discovered them. Daniel and I would sing and dance paw in paw\nto \"Satisfaction\" by The Rolling Stones, which was ironic since we gave each\nother more than enough satisfaction. \nWe used to\nsneak off and drive my father's Chevy down to the river where we would drink\nwhisky and rye under a tree. We'd kiss and make love under the stars when the\nhot summer arrived. If there were other furs by the river, we drove up to a\nhill that overlooked our town. We'd watch the sunset as our tails brushed. I\nnever grew tired of the view. I could see for miles and miles and miles, over\nthe town and to the mountains in the distance. I thought it would never end and\nI made plans in my head for our future. \"God\nonly knows what I'd be without him\" I thought to myself. I wanted to ask\nhim to my prom, be he talked me out of it, saying everyone would freak out.\nHowever, he still appreciated the gesture and said we could go out afterwards.\nI left shortly before the prom ended and went to his house, still in my tuxedo with a\npink carnation in the button hole. We took his father's pickup truck and went to\nour usual spot under the tree, making up for the time that we didn't get to spend\ntogether.    \nHowever,\nthings began to change after I graduated from High School. Battle lines had\nbeen drawn and I realised that our lives were set on two different paths. I was\nthe fortunate one. He chose to enlist in the army while I went off to college. I\ntried moving on, chasing after a white rabbit by sending him notes in class until\nhe agreed to date me, but it didn't last. No one could replace Daniel. I could\nnot forget his hypnotic brown eyes and glossy fur. I missed his strong, muscular\nbody as he held me close under the night sky. \nI joined a\nflurry of protests on campus, singing songs and carrying signs, then blew my mind as I experimented with drugs\nand alcohol. It was exciting while it lasted, but it came to a sudden end with\na cloud of CS gas in my face. My time in college drifted by in a haze, but I\nstill listened to the record collection and thought of Daniel every day. He was\naway fighting a war in a jungle while I was indulging in a decadent lifestyle.\nHis breed were effective at sniffing out the enemy, so they patrolled in the\ndanger zones. I watched the news footage of the helicopters and planes climbing\nhigh into the night, fireballs erupting over the trees and the fighting in the\nstreets. I longed for his safe return. \nThen, I got\nthe news I'd been dreading on the last day of my final semester.\nThat was it,\nI couldn't listen to anymore. The records stopped spinning on the turntable\nwith a final click. \nThat was the\nday the music died.   "}