#220: Sold

Joshua arrived at the dog kennel, fearing the worst. It wasn’t Ziggy’s age, nor that she’d been in there for two weeks, but his run of bad luck.

Yes, New York was a success, if media attention is considered a success. When you burn one of your art pieces at the opening after it had been sold, you get attention. The NYFD turned out and the who’s who all had to evacuate.

Skye had already hauled herself into another hotel and not returning his calls. His family wasn’t talking to him, and all he had left was Ziggy.

He could hear her panting and her nails scratching the concrete floor. The door flew open, and the handler let the lead go and Ziggy bounded into him. Her unconditional love overrode any anger at being abandoned.

Joshua turned the motor on the old Land Rover. Ziggy’s tail wagged against the front seat as she watched him drive.

Instead of turning onto the freeway back into Melbourne to the studio, which is where he assumed he’d now live, he headed out towards the country.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this far from concrete and bitumen. The dirt roads he found sung beneath his tyres. He stopped at a farm with a For Sale board out the front.

He drove to the nearest town for mobile reception and, before the day was done, was the proud owner of some place to live.