Your character lives an incredibly boring life until a stray dog turns up on their door every day.

Danny was losing it during lock-down. It was the most boring time of his life and he didn't know whether he even wanted to wait it out. All the constant talk of letting people out and then the inevitable postponements that the Government kept delivering was just too much. They were dangling a bit of hope in front of him, and then taking it away at the last minute. It was getting all too depressing and he was so alone and so down that he was even thinking of just going to end it all. Go to sleep forever and never wake up to this misery again.

That was until one day he heard a faint tapping at his front door. Thinking it was a burglar he picked up a screwdriver and ran down the stairs to open the entrance and confront the offender. Instead of a man though he found a little brown Staffie with white patches around his eyes looking up at him.

The dog was panting and looked thirsty. So Danny ran the outside tap and let the dog drink and run about under the faucet for a few minutes.

After a while of stroking, and playing with the dog it seemed happy enough and and ran off down the road. Danny had never seen that dog before but then the road he lived in was full of dogs and it could have been anyone’s.

He went back upstairs, put down his weapon and made himself considerably more suicidal by watching Ground Force repeats on the TV.

The next day, Danny was actually thinking about how he would go about taking himself out. He was looking at the drawers full of pills and old meds he had kept and wondered what kind of mix with a bottle of vodka and a hot bath would do the trick. That was when he heard the faint tapping at his door again.

Instead of picking up his screwdriver he looked out the window and could faintly see the Staffie. It was back at his front door pawing it, which was making the sound. He went downstairs and opened it to see the same visitor as the day before. It was wagging his little tail and started to lick Danny's hand. Danny responded with kind strokes and turned the water back on. He watched as the dog had a drink and a play under the tap before he ran off down the road again after a few minutes.

As he walked back up the stairs Danny started to wonder why the dog was visiting him so much, and why wasn't his owner giving him water to drink. It seemed odd but Danny put it to the back of his mind and went back to making himself more depressed with repeats of Top Gear on DAVE.

The next day Danny woke in a really foul mood. He could take this lock-down in this heat no longer, he was really considering doing the deed today and he arranged as many pills from various boxes that he had on the top of his set of drawers. He had loads of pills, from recent and ancient prescriptions, everything from Codeine to Valium, and he laid them all out in a neat All ready to be eaten one by one on his way out of this sad and lonely boring world.little row on the table top.  All Danny needed now was a bottle of a vodka to wash them down with and a hot bath to sink into and dream himself away into the world beyond.

As he sullenly walked down his stairs counting out the things he would miss in this life on one hand, he was in a world of his own. Nothing seemed to matter any more and this lock-down was, at least according to official statistics he could actually believe for once, the cause of a 50% rise in male suicides this year. He could easily believe the Government on this statistic the way he was feeling today.

He opened his front door ready to walk down to the shop to buy his last ever bottle of vodka when who was sitting outside but the Staffie who had visited him the last couple of days. He bent down to stroke it but the dog started running about in circles, as if chasing his own tail, something he had seen Staffies do many a time, except he wasn't even trying to catch his tail. It was as if he was just trying to attract Danny's attention.

He turned on the water tap expecting the dog to go and get a drink but instead it just stopped running about and sat down in front of him and looked him square in the eyes. Danny didn't know what to think and as he looked the dog back in the eyes. He felt a strange conscious connection to it as if the dog was trying to tell him something. He thought of Spock on Star Trek and his mind meld technique, wishing he could read the dogs thoughts, but nothing so lucky would come his way.

The dog started to walk away slowly, not the fast running speed of days before, but more of a stroll with constant looks back over his shoulder as if to pressure Danny into following it.

Danny was confused but something inside him was telling him to do as the dog wanted. He started walking the opposite way from the shop and down the long street. The dog a few metres in front of him and always looking behind himself as if to ensure Danny was still following him.

They seemed to walk for ages but the road he lived on was long and when he got to the end, the dog turned into a houses front garden, Danny was tired. He looked around to make sure no-one was watching him as he didn't want to be thought of as some kind of robber. However something was making him want to go on following the Staffie, all the way into the grey painted semi detached house.

The dog walked up to the front door of the house and pressed against the door which was surprisingly open. Danny started to wonder if this door had been open all this week when the Staffie had been visiting. Maybe the owner was away on holiday or had forgotten to shut it behind him when going out somewhere. It was odd whatever the case, however Danny ensured no-one was looking and followed the dog towards the door.

He gently pushed the 70's style wooden door fully open and then closed it as much as he could without locking it. He certainly didn't want to be stuck inside if someone came running at him. The dog was walking slowly through the corridor and then suddenly took a left into a room. Danny cautiously followed it and let his intuition be his guide, always wary that someone might jump out on him thinking he was there to rob the place. Instead he entered the room the dog had led him too into a horrible stench. Flies were everywhere and the place stunk worse than Billingsgate fish market.

It was only when he noticed the Staffie pawing at a seat did he realise something was wrong. He slowly walked over a floor covered in old porn mags, over turned ash trays and empty cans of beer before he saw the empty bowl of dog food, and a dish of what he presumed was used to be full of water for the Staff before he got to the chair. It was a lazy boy and pointed towards the wall. The back was so high he could see no head or arms, but then that's what lazy boy's were made for.

He touched the top and pushed it round slowly only to be met with a dead man sat in the chair slumped forward. He looked a similar age to Danny but grey and pale, and with both wrists cut. A massive pool of blood lay underneath him and the flies were all over the body as it was decomposing.

The man had obviously taken his own life, a sharp blade lay between his thighs and he guessed that the man had probably been having the same thoughts as Danny had lately. The dog just sat there quietly staring at his deceased owner and pawing at his leg, probably expecting some kind of movement. However this ghost was far too gone and the dog would never be able to get a stroke again from his now deceased friend. Danny now realised why the dog had been coming round his house every day and it seemed like a very odd coincidence indeed.

He picked up the dogs leash and tied it around his stocky short haired neck, and from the house phone made an anonymous call to 999 to report the death in the house. How could this man kill himself he wondered and then the thoughts he had been having lately all week rebounded around his head. He was probably in the same lonely state as himself and could take no more of the boredom and imprisonment that lock-down had brung upon them both, but how could he just leave a dog like that, that was cruel he thought as he picked up the lead and started to walk out of the house.

At least Danny wouldn't be lonely now he thought to himself as he and the Staffie took the long walk back to his own flat at the end of the road. He decided that he would take care of the dog, and hopefully it would keep him company, maybe even help him through the lock-down without feeling so lonely at times.

As he walked back up the road all thoughts of suicide cleared from his muggy head and he looked down at the Staffie wagging its little tail at him. Maybe this was a sign from God, synchronicity, or just pure coincidence. Who knew, who cared, at least he wouldn't be alone during this imprisonment any more.

They both entered Danny's flat and walked up the stairs. He cleared all his pills off his top into the bin and decided to spend the money he had for vodka on some dog food instead. No more shitty TV repeats he decided, they only depressed him and he turned the TV on to a radio station playing some good old House music from his teens.

He was actually feeling good for once. As for the deceased previous owner he had no clue, but at least his old dog would be safe now, and maybe together over time they would become friends. At least he hoped so as he lent down to give his own little Staffie another stroke.

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