Leo's Three-Headed Junkyard Dog

A parable.

     In a far away city where cars were very hard to come by lived a man named Leo. Leo was the proud owner of Leo�s Chop Shop, which was a chop shop, but more than that a junkyard. In a city with so few cars, the steel frames and skeletons of broken cars outnumbered the good, working cars by quite a lot! Well, someone had to look out for those poor, old cars and that someone was Leo. Leo was a very busy man, looking for owners of mostly working cars who were looking for Leo�s mostly working car parts, so he could not use all his hours watching over car skeletons. That was his three-headed junkyard dog�s duty.
     Leo�s three-headed junkyard dog was never called anything but Leo�s three-headed junkyard dog, because everyone agreed each head deserved a name, but no one wanted to call one dog by three names. Each head was very different. If everyone could see how different Leo�s three-headed junkyard dog�s heads were, they would go to the trouble of calling the dog by three names. The first head had a terrible anger in its brain. It only wished to chomp and tear anyone who came near the chop shop, even Leo, who was its master. The second head was much calmer and only wanted to sleep its days away. The third head was content only when its belly was full of good food, bad food, all food! Three mouths could not satisfy its third of the stomach. It was very hard for the three heads ever to agree on what to do.
     One day, a man with no car but a desire for car parts came to the lot while Leo was asleep late, late at night. He had no money and was not going to offer anything in exchange for the car parts. This man was simply going to take them.
     �I hear something! I hear something to be chomped on!� Growled the first head.
     �You heard our empty stomach,� cried the third, �It is growling louder than you!�
     �Yawn,� yawned the second head.
     The man out for car parts paid no attention to the dog, even though it had three heads. The dog would be much too difficult to steal, so he kept piling parts in his deep sack.
     �I hear it again! I must chomp on it!� The first head moved its legs towards the man. The third head moved its legs in the opposite direction, towards a juicy bone flecked with meat. The second head hung heavy, almost asleep.
     �Come with me, you in the middle, come with me to bite and chomp!�
     �Come with me, my brother beside me, to a great feast!�
     �Yawn.�
     And all the while the man with the sack filled the sack full of great car parts without offering anything to Leo and without being attacked by his three-headed junkyard dog. The three heads were stuck in place by their four legs, two on either side running in opposite directions.
     �Wake up, or I shall chomp on you instead!�
     �Wake up, or I shall eat you instead!�
             �Yawn?�
             Over the fence the man with the full sack hopped, but not before grabbing the three-headed junkyard dog�s bone and tossing it far, far away. The promise of something to chomp on was gone, as was the promise of something to eat. Neither the third nor the first head could bear to eat or chomp on the second, for if they did, they would feel his great pain, too. No, the first and third head only growled and cried, cried and growled, and only the second head was happy.

Reviews

[Writer CW Kirkland]

I believe this story has a strong message to tell, but I don't think the message was clearly expressed. Your writing style is good with some minor opportuntiies for improvement. Some of the sentences seemed to run on, and I suggest you break these up or shorten them. The choppy sentences make the story harder to read and breaks the reader's flow. This writing is a good start, and I think it can be great if the message is expressed more clearly. I love the idea of the three-headed junkyard dog with muliple personalities, and this "character" is a strong base for the message in the story.