Max 'helps' David with a broken appliance, but its 'demolition' ability accidentally 'disassembles' it into its fundamental components, leaving David amazed and confused, muttering about 'miraculous rust' or 'self-disintegrating alloys'.
The garage was David's sanctuary.
It smelled of oil, sawdust, and quiet competence.
Tools hung on the pegboard in neat, disciplined rows.
Projects in various states of completion sat on the workbench, monuments to solvable problems.
Today, that sanctuary was about to be violated by a force beyond a Phillips head screwdriver.
The victim was a vintage electric drill, a relic from an era when things were built to last.
It had finally given up the ghost, its motor emitting a sad, final groan before falling silent.
David held it with a fond sort of reverence.
"They don't make them like this anymore, Leo."
He sighed, placing it on the workbench.
"Solid steel. Probably weighs more than the cat."
Leo nodded sagely, trying to look interested.
He knew nothing about drills, but he knew his father's lectures on the decline of modern craftsmanship.
"A real classic, Dad."
Max, however, saw not a classic, but a challenge.
His tail began a low, rhythmic thump against a stack of old newspapers.
"Woof?"
It was a question, an offer, a declaration of intent.
David chuckled. "You want to help, boy?"
Max's entire body wiggled in affirmation.
Leo felt a familiar cold dread snake up his spine.
Help.
That word, when uttered by Max, was a harbinger of chaos.
"Dad, maybe that's not a good idea. He's… enthusiastic."
"Nonsense," David said, patting Max's head. "A dog needs a purpose. Besides, what's the worst he can do? It's already broken."
Oh, the sweet, blissful ignorance of a man who hadn't seen his dog edit reality.
Leo's mind flashed back to the perfectly cubic patch of weeds.
The surgically disassembled faucet.
The neatly separated junk pile.
"The worst he can do" was a concept that was rapidly expanding.
David handed the drill to Max. "Alright, big guy. See if you can… loosen it up for me."
Max took the drill gently in his mouth, his goofy husky eyes gleaming with profound seriousness.
He was no longer a dog.
He was a technician.
A deconstruction specialist.
Problem detected, Max's simple, powerful brain seemed to hum. Object not functioning. Requires… adjustment.
He laid the drill on the ground.
He nudged it with his nose.
He tilted his head, as if listening to its inner secrets.
Then, with a single, enthusiastic CRUNCH, he bit down.
It wasn't the sound of plastic cracking or metal bending.
It was a soft, wet thump.
A sound that didn't belong in a world governed by the laws of physics.
A tiny, shimmering distortion, no bigger than a coin, pulsed around the drill for a fraction of a second.
Leo saw it.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
David, who had been reaching for a wrench, just blinked.
When the shimmer faded, the drill was gone.
In its place, on the concrete floor, lay its constituent parts.
They were arranged in a pattern of such baffling, beautiful order it could have been a museum exhibit.
The outer casing was split perfectly in half, laid out like a clamshell.
Every single screw, no matter how small, was in a neat, separate pile.
The motor's copper windings were coiled as if fresh from the factory.
The trigger mechanism was disassembled into its tiny springs and plastic components, each sitting in its own designated space.
It was not broken.
It was not demolished.
It was… curated.
Max looked up, immensely proud.
He nudged the pile of screws with his nose, then looked at David, tail wagging furiously.
"Woof! Fixed!"
David stared.
His mouth hung slightly agape.
He knelt, his hand hovering over the perfectly arranged components.
He picked up one of the screws.
"Odd," he muttered, his voice distant.
"Leo… did you see that?"
Leo swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "See what, Dad?"
He had to play dumb. It was his only defense against the rising tide of insanity that was his life.
"It just… fell apart." David's brow furrowed in deep, analytical thought. "But not like… breaking. It's like it was… unassembled."
He poked the motor. "The dust is gone. Even from the inside."
Leo's mind raced, scrambling for an explanation.
Any explanation.
Faulty wiring? No, that wouldn't unscrew the screws.
A sudden pressure change? A micro-earthquake localized entirely within a thirty-year-old power tool?
He was running out of plausible deniability.
"It must have been a manufacturing defect, Dad," Leo offered, his voice a little too high. "You know, planned obsolescence. Guess the plan just… kicked in."
David wasn't listening.
He was rubbing his chin, a look of intense scientific curiosity on his face.
"This is remarkable. It's not rust. It couldn't be. The speed… the precision…"
He looked at his own workbench, then back at the disassembled drill.
He picked up an old, rusty wrench.
"Perhaps it was a molecular fatigue, Leo, a rare alloy breakdown?" he mused, tapping the wrench.
Max, seeing a new potential project, trotted over.
"No, Max!" Leo yelped, grabbing the husky by the collar.
"Max, you're a good boy, but you certainly have a knack for finding the most fragile items," David said, still captivated by the drill.
He gently nudged the pile of gears with his finger.
"Incredible. It's like it just decided its time as a cohesive object was over."
Max whined, straining against Leo's grip, his eyes locked on the wrench.
New toy! New problem! Max can fix!
Leo could almost hear the two chaotic thoughts ricocheting inside the dog's skull.
He dragged Max back a few feet. "He's just excited, Dad. Lots of interesting smells in here."
David stood up, shaking his head in wonder. "I'll have to look this up. Spontaneous mechanical disassembly. Maybe it's a known phenomenon in certain alloys. The vibrations from the motor over the years…"
He was building a perfectly logical framework for a completely illogical event.
It was both a relief and terrifying.
How long could he keep finding scientific explanations for Max's reality-bending chewing habits?
Molecular fatigue? More like 'Husky-induced quantum deconstruction.'
How do I explain that he can selectively disassemble a microchip but not a tennis ball? My life is a physics textbook written by a comedian.
This was getting out of hand.
Max, meanwhile, had forgotten the wrench and was now sniffing at the lawnmower.
"Woof! Broken! Max can help!"
Leo lunged, grabbing Max's collar again. "No! No helping with the lawnmower!"
David finally turned his attention away from the drill parts. "You know, Leo, for a dog, he has a very specific set of interests. All of them involving taking things apart."
"He's a husky, Dad. It's what they do."
It was a weak excuse, and Leo knew it. But it was all he had.
David knelt and began carefully gathering the drill components. "Well, I guess my repair job just got a lot more complicated. Or maybe simpler. At least I don't have to guess what's inside."
He looked at the pristine parts in his hand, a small, baffled smile on his face.
"Still, a rare alloy breakdown… fascinating."
Max, having been successfully diverted from the lawnmower, now dropped a small, perfectly dismantled birdhouse at David's feet.
"Woof! Fixed!"
David stared at the tiny, neatly piled wooden slats and miniature screws.
His smile faltered.
"Alright," he said slowly. "That's… that's enough help for one day, Max."
Leo closed his eyes and breathed.
The problem wasn't that his dog was a demolitionist.
The problem was that he was becoming an artist.
A surrealist master whose medium was chaos.
And Leo was the only one in the audience who knew the truth.
The stress was becoming a physical thing, a constant thrum beneath his skin.
It used to be about hiding a cat's super-appetite or impossible agility.
Those were explainable, with a bit of creative lying.
A growth spurt. Static electricity. A trick of the light.
But this?
A dog who could un-build things?
Who could reverse the process of manufacturing with a single bite?
This was a new level of impossible.
The excuses were getting thinner.
The coincidences were piling up too high.
His life was no longer just peppered with lucky breaks and odd occurrences.
It was becoming a tapestry woven from them.
Each new power, each new incident, pulled the thread tighter.
He wondered when it would all unravel.
He looked at Max, who was now joyfully chasing his own tail, completely oblivious to the existential crisis he had just induced in his owner.
The husky was happy.
David was confused but intrigued.
And Leo was standing on the precipice, looking down into a swirling vortex of beautiful, hilarious, and utterly terrifying absurdity.
Leo's internal monologue reflects his increasing stress as his familiars' powers grow beyond simple 'lucky coincidences', forcing him to invent more elaborate cover-ups.