Welcome to Agora, an anthology of super short stories set in a world where the public sector is dead. A universe that’s governed, not by ineffective politicians, but faceless corporations.
Read Time: 3 Minutes
Ximena Alba came home from school to find her father, Luis, holding the package. It was unmistakable. The vibrant red box put a warm smile on her face. It held the puppy they ordered from Ruff™️.
Through small slits, caramel colored eyes stared back at her – pleading to be let out free. The hue of its iris was a perfect match to the hex code her father spent days tinkering with.
Luis set the box down in the living room. It was a grand space with vaulted ceilings, ornate decor, and trivial artifacts from the old world. Books mostly. The ones nobody read anymore, nobody except Luis himself.
Ximena opened the packaging softly — savoring every second of the experience.
Working her way through the box elicited pure joy. The tactile sensation of the synthetic cardboard, how smooth it was. The scent of newness that came with it. The crisp marketing collateral written in a friendly tone, just as excited as she was.
Hello, Ximena! 👋
Meet your new best friend.
Ximena dug around for the engraved name tag, but couldn’t find it.
“What’s his name?” She asked her father.
“Prince,” he said.
This was fitting. The Alba family had been the closest thing to royalty in the Agora.
Class consciousness went right over Ximena’s head, but it never seemed to escape the mind of her father. Within the Agora, it was taboo to view the world in terms of rich and poor — a cynical and demoralizing perspective, reserved for the fools who ran ANTICO.
But still, in Luis’ mind, when you're a wolf in the food chain, it’s hard not to view everyone else as sheep.
Unlike his fellow humans, Luis viewed Prince as perfection. A beautiful golden-retriever, hypo-allergenic, with a genetic inability to shed. Best of all? He was coded to be house-broken.
Prince popped out of the box, placing his paws over the precipice. He wrangled his way onto the floor, and that’s when Ximena noticed it — in his eyes, a cognition. The dog waddled around the room, sniffing corners, brushing right past the couches and coffee table — and plopped down in front of the wall of books — hypnotized. He stared intently at one in particular. One of Luis’ favorites. The Count of Monte Cristo.
“What’s it about?” Ximena asked her father.
“A prisoner.”
***
Prince was the best pup Ximena could have asked for. He was cuddly, well-mannered, and loved treats. But that was standard -- traits inherent to every dog. What Ximena really admired were the traits she hadn’t thought possible of any animal.
His intelligence. It seemed limitless. Early on, she realized he understood what she was saying. Her parents doubted this phenomenon, especially her father. In fact, he’d get angry any time she mentioned it. So she stopped.
But it was clear. If she asked a question, like: do you want to go for a walk?
He would respond — one bark: yes, two barks: no.
And to the question of going for a walk, Prince always barked once.
So the pair trekked out, past the armed security guards, through gates, and onto the street. The neighborhood was extremely safe, but only a couple blocks over — lived the filth. Ximena called them filth, because she learned no other word. It simply was part of her limited vocabulary.
Toward the filth was where Prince usually wanted to go. Always fixated on something strange. Yesterday it had been a flyer. Like the ones made for lost dogs — except this one happened to be about a lost human. Raymond Fortois. Prince would not budge, not move, not stop barking until Ximena took the flyer and put it in her coat pocket.
But today, he decided to lead her toward a dilapidated home half a mile away from the Alba estate. There was a boy sitting on the stoop. Not much older than Ximena herself.
The dog lunged at the boy — pulling all twenty-five pounds of force with him. Ximena, with no luck pulling back, decided to pick him up. And despite what her father or the red packaging said, Prince nipped her.
She dropped the dog, and it ran over to the boy. Nuzzled into his lap, and wagged its tail with a ferocity she had never seen.
“I’m sorry,” said Ximena. She was polite and cordial, even to those she considered filth.
The boy nodded his head, and looked suspiciously at her designer outfits. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ximena. Nice to meet you.”
“Of course. Ximena Alba.”
A pang of dread filled Ximena — not only because he knew her full name, but because of the way he said it. With such casual disdain.
The boy picked up the dog, and handed it back over — holding it far away like it was infected with a disease. But as soon as the dog reached Ximena’s arms, it once again leapt toward the boy.
As disgusted as he was with Ximena, her soft coat, leather boots, and lab-made dog, the boy couldn’t help but laugh. The puppy was cute — it was designed to be.
“What’s your name?” Asked Ximena, unsure of what to say or do next.
“Raymond,” he responded.
“Raymond what? It’s only fair, since you clearly know my full name.”
“Fortois.”
Ximena’s entire expression dropped. “Your name is Raymond Fortois?” The boy nodded, confused by her reaction.
She pulled the crumpled flyer out of her coat, and handed it to Raymond. He went to say something, but then stopped. Eventually uttering, “this is my father.”
“What happened to him?” Ximena asked.
“The police claim that he defected to ANTICO,” Raymond said. “Gave us a letter, but it didn’t sound like my father at all. It had to have been forged.”
Prince barked once. Raymond continued.
“Something very bad happened to him. My mother and I have been placing these flyers, hoping to find out what.”
There was a short silence between them, before Raymond spoke again — holding the flyer high in his hands.
“Who gave you this?”
Ximena looked at Prince, afraid to ask:
“Prince, do you know where Raymond is?”
The dog responded with one bark.