2026-07-24, 06:56 AM - Word count:
Lying in bed, thoughts went back to home. That is to say, to his former home country, because this technically was home now. At least for a while. Still technically a minor, Joe wasn’t able to buy a house, and so the staff at the club had provided him with a few different options; a room at the club’s academy dorm, staying with a host family, or getting a hotel room on a more or less indefinite basis to circumvent the rules. He had eventually opted for the latter. And so here he was, on a bed in a hotel, reminiscing. A little earlier, he’d put on a pair of running shoes and visited the local wildlife in the park nearest to his accommodation, a new favourite pastime of his. Passed the time, fit well in with the general emphasis on physical condition and stamina that his profession demanded of him, and also served to rid himself of time that would otherwise likely be wasted one way or another. At the park, he’d come across commuters heading home from work, perhaps opting for the scenic route, although on a second thought everything in the area felt like it could constitute said scenic route, so it may have been more likely that they were just trying out some kind of shortcut. Either way, apart from the commuters, he’d also started taking note of all the people walking their dogs in the park. Probably doubled well as a doggy toilet, he’d figured, but now that he was back in bed, his thoughts were returning to this one big, fluffy, white dog which he’d come across, and thereby to Leo.
Back in Thailand, when Joe had first started helping out his dad with his fruit stall, he had once entered the soi (a small side-street) on which it was set up on the way back from school from Silom Road, getting off the bus one stop earlier than necessary. There was a famous street stall right at the entrance to the stall, from which they served various Thai dishes to customers sitting in plastic chairs under parasols shielding them from the worst of the sun. On the way down from Silom Road to the entrance to the soi, there was this one ambiguous area behind a wall that seemed like one you might expect by a temple or perhaps even a burial ground (if not for the fact that it was in one of the busiest areas of a metropolis). Part of it was just fenced off, and it seemed mostly abandoned but for a fairly sizeable pack of stray dogs that would sometimes lurk around by the fence. Perhaps some of them could pass through the metal bars, but others were certainly too big to do so, and so there must either have been a proper entrance, or perhaps the area was a little less abandoned than it gave off. Turning the corner, one would be faced with the many chairs and tables of the food stall, before the pavement sort of ended in front of another gate that one could imagine would lead to the stray dogs, but in reality seemed to open up to a parking lot. It opened frequently, and there were never any dogs in sight, so it was unlikely that the parking lot was connected to whatever place it was that the dogs occupied. Just after the gate, the pavement reappeared on the other side of the soi, luring any strollers over to take up the safety it provided from the sometimes-speeding vehicles turning up at the next corner on their way to Silom Road. Joe fell victim to this sirens’ call, looking to the 7/Eleven-sign a couple dozen meters up ahead, then to another little stall in front, walking on ahead, completely oblivious. Oblivious to the massive street dog that suddenly appeared right in front of him. He froze. Even panicked. Imagine if he’d taken a couple more steps. The dog might have gone for him – it probably weighed more than he did, and looking at its build and the shape of its face, it probably possessed fangs that could chew right through him. Eventually, he realised that the dog seemed to be sleeping in the sun, and slowly snuck past it, making it all the way up to the corner of the street, where another stall began, before picking up pace to reach Tok’s fruit stall.
Since then, Joe had steered clear of the entrance to the soi via Silom Road. Street dogs were no rare sight, but that only meant that he had developed a certain respect for the beasts. They could rile each other up, and it wasn’t unheard of that they could go so far as to attack someone if they were hungry enough. Or so he’d been told anyway. Not wanting to seem like a coward, he never told anyone, and instead just started taking the bus one stop further, approaching his dad’s stall from the other side. Months passed before Tok asked him to bring a couple of bags of papaya and pineapple down to the auntie running the stall “down by the next 7”. With no excuses to spare him, Joe convinced himself that it wasn’t like anything had happened. It was just a big dog – and, to be fair, it wasn’t like it had made any indications of wishing to harm him or anyone else. On the contrary, with it being so close by people, it was probably not harmful at all. Probably.
Turning around the corner, he started spying for the creature. One would think that it’s white fur would make it easy to notice, but on the concrete pavement, it almost worked like camouflage if anything. Eyes turning from side to side, he kept looking for the dog as he walked down the road. No dog in sight, he turned towards the auntie’s stall. As soon as she noticed him, she greeted him in the overly kind way that aunties sometimes do, acting all polite to a child to an extent that could be mistaken for sarcasm or an assumption that one was, well, a child, and not a teenager. He smiled at her, and made his approach, showing the colourful chunks of fruit as they shone through the transparent plastic bags to the woman. She leaned forward to accept them when he was still a few meters off, careful to do so off the side as to not have any incidents with the grill that she was operating in front of her, smoke rising from the sausages currently over the fire probably forming a small cloud somewhere up in the sky. Joe put on a brisk pace, preparing to take the last few steps. And then he saw it. Right up the concrete steps behind the stall, not quite in front of the convenience store, but a little further towards the display window of what seemed to be a car company next to it. The huge white dog was laying right there, looking, no, staring at him. He tried to look away, to ignore the creature. To the best of his abilities, he’d keep up his smile, politely greeting the auntie – “Good day. I brought these from my father. He sends his regards.” The woman accepted the fruit, thanking him. “Here, take a sausage. It’s on the house,” she said, putting the bags of fruit somewhere behind the grill and beginning to pull a stick with a sausage off the grill. Joe wanted to keep looking at her, but his eyes repeatedly returned to the dog. It was still staring at him, and now it started to move. He wished the woman would hurry up, but he needed to keep up a polite façade. The dog got up and slowly started approaching. Joe felt his heart sink. Then rise again, beginning to pick up pace. The woman seemed oblivious to the deadly battle of wills that was playing out right before her stall, casually taking her time to put wrap the sausage in a bag with another one that she was had started taking off the grill while Joe was busy trying to simultaneously calm his body and prepare it to take flight.
“Leo! Here, you silly dog,” the auntie suddenly spoke in a tone of mild annoyance, throwing a different sausage off in the direction of the dog, who caught it with the laziest look a dog could possibly muster. Leo immediately turned around, returning to his previous spot. Disaster averted.
The auntie finally handed Joe the bag with sausages, saying “I added one of these sausages as well. They’re Leo’s favourite. In fact, they’re everybody’s favourite – I’m sure they’ll be yours too. Anyway, whenever he sees that there are more than one on the grill at once, he comes begging. Silly thing just can’t help himself.” And that’s when it dawned upon Joe. The dog hadn’t been looking at him the way he thought it had. It had been looking at the both him and the auntie to see if he was going to buy all of the sausages, or if he’d be getting any himself. Joe would have burst out laughing right there and then, if not because he felt quite ashamed at his own cowardice. Sure, the dog was big, but it was right there, next to people all day. Of course it would be tame.
Back at the hotel in Budapest, Joe realised why the dog had caught his attention so. It wasn’t just that it reminded him of Leo. It was because Leo also reminded him of someone. He’d already made his first two appearances for his new club in the SSL. They’d made the trip to South Africa, a place that felt very familiar to him after last year, and then he had been on the pitch for another 90 minutes at home against Inter London. On neither occasion had he made any great contributions. Someone else had, though. Arsène N’Goussou, the guy whom the airport staff had brought up, had scored four goals in the first two SSL-matches of the season. Just like Leo, he seemed to be waiting around, and then suddenly waking up the moment he picked up the smell of his goal. In Leo’s case, the goal was food. For Arsène, it was an actual goal. He seemed bigger, faster, stronger, smarter than the other 21 people with whom he shared the pitch. Not just once, but on both occasions.
With maximum points after two matches, Joe felt comfortable in his new home, even if he himself was yet unaccustomed to his new defensive position on the pitch. He may have struggles ahead, but just as the auntie had given him sausages for his delivery work, the team would surely pick up points for their work.
Back in Thailand, when Joe had first started helping out his dad with his fruit stall, he had once entered the soi (a small side-street) on which it was set up on the way back from school from Silom Road, getting off the bus one stop earlier than necessary. There was a famous street stall right at the entrance to the stall, from which they served various Thai dishes to customers sitting in plastic chairs under parasols shielding them from the worst of the sun. On the way down from Silom Road to the entrance to the soi, there was this one ambiguous area behind a wall that seemed like one you might expect by a temple or perhaps even a burial ground (if not for the fact that it was in one of the busiest areas of a metropolis). Part of it was just fenced off, and it seemed mostly abandoned but for a fairly sizeable pack of stray dogs that would sometimes lurk around by the fence. Perhaps some of them could pass through the metal bars, but others were certainly too big to do so, and so there must either have been a proper entrance, or perhaps the area was a little less abandoned than it gave off. Turning the corner, one would be faced with the many chairs and tables of the food stall, before the pavement sort of ended in front of another gate that one could imagine would lead to the stray dogs, but in reality seemed to open up to a parking lot. It opened frequently, and there were never any dogs in sight, so it was unlikely that the parking lot was connected to whatever place it was that the dogs occupied. Just after the gate, the pavement reappeared on the other side of the soi, luring any strollers over to take up the safety it provided from the sometimes-speeding vehicles turning up at the next corner on their way to Silom Road. Joe fell victim to this sirens’ call, looking to the 7/Eleven-sign a couple dozen meters up ahead, then to another little stall in front, walking on ahead, completely oblivious. Oblivious to the massive street dog that suddenly appeared right in front of him. He froze. Even panicked. Imagine if he’d taken a couple more steps. The dog might have gone for him – it probably weighed more than he did, and looking at its build and the shape of its face, it probably possessed fangs that could chew right through him. Eventually, he realised that the dog seemed to be sleeping in the sun, and slowly snuck past it, making it all the way up to the corner of the street, where another stall began, before picking up pace to reach Tok’s fruit stall.
Since then, Joe had steered clear of the entrance to the soi via Silom Road. Street dogs were no rare sight, but that only meant that he had developed a certain respect for the beasts. They could rile each other up, and it wasn’t unheard of that they could go so far as to attack someone if they were hungry enough. Or so he’d been told anyway. Not wanting to seem like a coward, he never told anyone, and instead just started taking the bus one stop further, approaching his dad’s stall from the other side. Months passed before Tok asked him to bring a couple of bags of papaya and pineapple down to the auntie running the stall “down by the next 7”. With no excuses to spare him, Joe convinced himself that it wasn’t like anything had happened. It was just a big dog – and, to be fair, it wasn’t like it had made any indications of wishing to harm him or anyone else. On the contrary, with it being so close by people, it was probably not harmful at all. Probably.
Turning around the corner, he started spying for the creature. One would think that it’s white fur would make it easy to notice, but on the concrete pavement, it almost worked like camouflage if anything. Eyes turning from side to side, he kept looking for the dog as he walked down the road. No dog in sight, he turned towards the auntie’s stall. As soon as she noticed him, she greeted him in the overly kind way that aunties sometimes do, acting all polite to a child to an extent that could be mistaken for sarcasm or an assumption that one was, well, a child, and not a teenager. He smiled at her, and made his approach, showing the colourful chunks of fruit as they shone through the transparent plastic bags to the woman. She leaned forward to accept them when he was still a few meters off, careful to do so off the side as to not have any incidents with the grill that she was operating in front of her, smoke rising from the sausages currently over the fire probably forming a small cloud somewhere up in the sky. Joe put on a brisk pace, preparing to take the last few steps. And then he saw it. Right up the concrete steps behind the stall, not quite in front of the convenience store, but a little further towards the display window of what seemed to be a car company next to it. The huge white dog was laying right there, looking, no, staring at him. He tried to look away, to ignore the creature. To the best of his abilities, he’d keep up his smile, politely greeting the auntie – “Good day. I brought these from my father. He sends his regards.” The woman accepted the fruit, thanking him. “Here, take a sausage. It’s on the house,” she said, putting the bags of fruit somewhere behind the grill and beginning to pull a stick with a sausage off the grill. Joe wanted to keep looking at her, but his eyes repeatedly returned to the dog. It was still staring at him, and now it started to move. He wished the woman would hurry up, but he needed to keep up a polite façade. The dog got up and slowly started approaching. Joe felt his heart sink. Then rise again, beginning to pick up pace. The woman seemed oblivious to the deadly battle of wills that was playing out right before her stall, casually taking her time to put wrap the sausage in a bag with another one that she was had started taking off the grill while Joe was busy trying to simultaneously calm his body and prepare it to take flight.
...
…
…
“Leo! Here, you silly dog,” the auntie suddenly spoke in a tone of mild annoyance, throwing a different sausage off in the direction of the dog, who caught it with the laziest look a dog could possibly muster. Leo immediately turned around, returning to his previous spot. Disaster averted.
The auntie finally handed Joe the bag with sausages, saying “I added one of these sausages as well. They’re Leo’s favourite. In fact, they’re everybody’s favourite – I’m sure they’ll be yours too. Anyway, whenever he sees that there are more than one on the grill at once, he comes begging. Silly thing just can’t help himself.” And that’s when it dawned upon Joe. The dog hadn’t been looking at him the way he thought it had. It had been looking at the both him and the auntie to see if he was going to buy all of the sausages, or if he’d be getting any himself. Joe would have burst out laughing right there and then, if not because he felt quite ashamed at his own cowardice. Sure, the dog was big, but it was right there, next to people all day. Of course it would be tame.
Back at the hotel in Budapest, Joe realised why the dog had caught his attention so. It wasn’t just that it reminded him of Leo. It was because Leo also reminded him of someone. He’d already made his first two appearances for his new club in the SSL. They’d made the trip to South Africa, a place that felt very familiar to him after last year, and then he had been on the pitch for another 90 minutes at home against Inter London. On neither occasion had he made any great contributions. Someone else had, though. Arsène N’Goussou, the guy whom the airport staff had brought up, had scored four goals in the first two SSL-matches of the season. Just like Leo, he seemed to be waiting around, and then suddenly waking up the moment he picked up the smell of his goal. In Leo’s case, the goal was food. For Arsène, it was an actual goal. He seemed bigger, faster, stronger, smarter than the other 21 people with whom he shared the pitch. Not just once, but on both occasions.
With maximum points after two matches, Joe felt comfortable in his new home, even if he himself was yet unaccustomed to his new defensive position on the pitch. He may have struggles ahead, but just as the auntie had given him sausages for his delivery work, the team would surely pick up points for their work.
