Hotdog

Dwain raised the hotdog to his mouth, opening wide to take a satisfying bite.

"Are you going to eat me?"

Dwain blinked and looked up at the hotdog seller instinctively.

The man stared back at him inquisitively. He did not seem to have too much business to tend to, but then it was 3PM on a slow Wednesday afternoon.

Dwain cleared his throat, "Did you say something?" he asked uncertainly.

"Down here, dumbass," the voice retorted from his hand.

Dwain glanced down at the hotdog.

He looked back up at the seller, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That."

"Only when you said it."

"No, not 'that', that."

"You'll have to be a little more specific."

Dwain cleared his throat, "Did you hear, 'Down here, dumbass.'"

The seller frowned, "Who are you calling a dumbass, dumbass?"

"Wow, unoriginal," the hotdog retorted.

"I'm going crazy…" Dwain muttered to himself, holding his head.

"Eat your hotdog and get out of my face," the seller said.

Dwain nodded, "Yeah, that's a good idea," he looked down at the hotdog, "I am going to eat you."

"Are you proud of yourself?"

Dwain blinked, "What?"

"Are you proud of yourself? I'm helpless to defend myself. I have no arms, no legs, I am a sausage in a bun. Are you proud that you're eating a defenceless little sandwich?"

"Thousands of people eat you everyday," Dwain told it.

"And that makes it okay? Is genocide okay if everybody does it?"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Are you going to eat it?" the seller asked, annoyed, "Or keep yelling at a hunk of sausage in a bun."

Dwain cleared his throat, "I think I'm hearing things, I can hear the sausage."

"You got one of those fancy pants Synaesthesia thingies?"

"No, the hotdog is talking to me,"

"You're crazy," the seller told him.

Dwain nodded, "Maybe I am," he said.

"Or maybe you have a superpower," the hotdog offered.

Dwain perked up, "Really?" he asked hopefully.

The hotdog snorted, "Yeah, right, the superpower to talk to a hotdog, what're you gonna be, hotdog-man?"

Dwain flushed, "Hey! Ice-cream-man is a real superhero, who says I can't be hotdog-man!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, Google it."

"I don't have hands. Or a phone. I'm a hotdog."

"Oh yeah."

Dwain looked up, the hotdog seller was looking at him weird.

"I have to eat you," he told the hotdog, "Or the seller will think I'm weird."

"You've been standing at his stall for four minutes and talking to a hotdog, he already thinks you're weird, besides, you don't even know his name. Is the approval of a stranger really worth the life of an innocent?"

"You're not alive!" Dwain screamed at the hotdog.

"What is life?"

"Argh! I don't want a theory of knowledge lesson! All I wanted was a little snack…" tears rolled down Dwain's face.

"Is that all I am to you? A snack? Even after this bond we share?"

Dwain bawled.

The hotdog seller smirked.

He would never regret learning ventriloquism.