How does a gay, immigrant otter navigate his way through life in modern day Germany? Love and four strings can help when times get rough.

Today’s story is the first of three parts of “Tempus Imperfectum” by Al Song, who is a musician, furry writer, and polyglot. The red kangaroo also assists as an editor at Thurston Howl Publications. He has been published in multiple anthologies, including Fang 8 and Roar 9. “Tempus Imperfectum” was originally published in Tales from the Guild – World Tour by FurPlanet, and you can find more of his stories on FurAffinity and SoFurry.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is the first of three parts of

“Tempus Imperfectum” by Al Song,

who is a musician,

furry writer, and polyglot.

The red kangaroo also assists as an editor at Thurston Howl Publications.

He has been published in multiple anthologies, including Fang 8 and Roar 9.

“Tempus Imperfectum”

was originally published in Tales from the Guild –

World Tour by FurPlanet,

and you can find more of his stories on FurAffinity and SoFurry. [if this is the second or third entry] Last time,

“Tempus Imperfectum”

by Al Song, Part 1

of 3 “No! Stop!”

the tall arctic fox shouted as he furiously waved his skinny arms across his chest,

signaling the young musicians to put their instruments down.

He placed his baton on the stand

and took off his bronze wire-rimmed glasses to rub his eyelids.

“I know I’m repeating myself when I say this, but you all need to practice.

It isn’t enough that only some of you actually practice.

This is a group effort.

I will schedule weekend rehearsals if I must.

must.” A chubby badger in the front row with a violin shot a dirty look to the lion next to him.

The lion turned towards the badger

and gave a nervous shrug.

“We all have to work together,

and we need to all be a little more disciplined.

It’s not fair to everyone if you don’t practice or know your part.

We’re going to be playing music for our town festival.

It’s our community, so please don’t let them down,

and especially don’t let yourselves down,

alright?” he said, raising a brow at the last word.

The students groaned an exasperated

“okay” together in unison.

The fox looked at his watch,

prompting a sigh, and said,

“I know it’s a few minutes earlier than I usually let you go, but I think we can stop for today. We’ll continue next session.”

A clamorous commotion of chatting and laughing ensued

as most of the students packed up their instruments and sheet music.

A few yelled, “See you!” or “Bye, Herr Farber!”

as they ran out of the room.

“Herr Farber?” the badger asked, looking up at the lanky fox.

“Yes, what is it, Volker?”

the conductor replied as he stashed his baton and sheet music away.

“May Lorenzo and I stay late and practice?”

Volker turned to the short otter in thick, black glasses sitting in the front row near him,

viola resting on his lap.

The fox’s short ears perked,

and he smiled at the young badger.

“Of course, but I think some people from the community center have this room booked in half an hour.”

“That’s fine. We’ll be out of here before then.”

Lorenzo penciled in a few notes to himself

around some dynamics and tempo markings on the score in front of him.

He sighed internally as he went back to the first page.

The piece was Waldwelt by the baroque composer Salvatore Calabrese,

and the otter’s eyes were fixated on the title,

composer, and year of 1601.

He tried doing research on Calabrese on the internet without much luck.

Lorenzo knew the composer was a brown rat, born on the beautiful beaches of Bari in sunny southern Italy,

and composed many short pieces and a couple dozen orchestral works.

He was able to find a condensed timeline of the composer’s life,

but the otter wanted to know how he felt about the world around him besides his affinity for flutes and stringed instruments.

Calabrese earned enough to travel to the Holy Roman Empire

and kept writing music and performing,

but was he happy about his new life?

How did he deal with learning a new language?

Did he have very many friends and fans

when he lived near the Black Forest?

Despite how much Lorenzo enjoyed the music

it seemed like Calabrese was a d-list celebrity compared to other composers of his time

and wasn’t quite as revered, but at least his memory somewhat lived on.

Once the rest of the students and Herr Farber left the room, Volker set his violin down and walked over to Lorenzo.

The two grinned at each other in their shared sense of privacy

and they embraced

with a gentle kiss.

The badger’s white golf shirt pressed up against the otter’s red and yellow t-shirt.

Volker gently pecked him again on the cheek

and said, “Why do these people have to be so stressful?”

“Hey, we have time for the whole orchestra to improve,”

Lorenzo said, letting his Italian accent dictate his palate.

“We usually play well at our concerts.”

“All the good players graduated.

At least you’re here.”

“At least? I’ve been playing viola since I was eight.”

“You know I’m teasing.

Let’s get back to the music.”

The two practiced

difficult sections of the pieces to perfect them as much as possible

in the dusty music room.

Their toes tapped in unison as they ran through the phrases with the precision of a metronome.

Their ability to vibrato was unmatched by anyone else in their orchestra.

They bowed with such control

and pressed the strings of their fingerboards with expert precision,

their pitch never faltering.

Their two instruments were similar in construction

and easily mistaken for the other with untrained eyes,

yet their sizes and playable ranges differed.

The boys always stayed together and listened to one another.

They looked and acted very differently,

but their common thread was their love for music.

Later on, the afternoon light from the windows turned into a dim golden glow

and there was a knock on the door by a middle aged Siberian tigress from the community center.

Volker and Lorenzo stopped;

it was their cue to leave.

They packed up their belongings

and ambled out of the school.

The streets of their small town were drenched in a warm shade of honeyed yellow.

Trees rustled and shimmered as they reflected soft sunlight from their verdant leaves.

Many of the stores and cafes were closed as they walked past their large display windows.

A few cars passed by

but the late afternoon was fairly quiet.

A couple blocks further down the road of the charming town,

the boys passed one of the local bakeries which

always stirred up bittersweet memories for Lorenzo. #

It was a couple years ago,

and Lorenzo and his father, Massimo,

were still settling into their new apartment in Hügeldorf.

The little otter was celebrating his birthday so Lorenzo and his father had a potluck with the other tenants.

Helen Themelis was a new Grundschule teacher from Greece.

She was a kind rabbit

who always helped Lorenzo with his homework and explained to him little things like how to properly format an essay written in German

and that quotation marks were written differently.

Francisco, a lynx from Spain who studied economics and finance,

always helped Massimo with legal paperwork and filing taxes.

The Tomruks, a couple of middle-aged Turkish grey wolves who lived next door,

would always cook for Lorenzo whenever his dad had to work late.

The fellow tenants helped the otters learn German

and adjust to living in Hügeldorf.

At the time, Lorenzo had language acquisition classes after school.

His father asked him to pick up some bread and gave him a little extra money so he could buy himself a birthday treat.

Lorenzo obliged, confident he knew all the terms in German when it came to buying food,

purchasing the bread

and a little doughnut for himself.

Outside the bakery,

the young otter ran into a few other students from the Gymnasium he attended.

“Hey,” a bear shouted at him, flanked by a bat and a weasel.

“You’re the new kid, right?”

Lorenzo took a second to think about what he uttered and nervously replied with, “Beh,

yeah.” “What are you?”

the bear asked smugly.

“I’m an otter,” Lorenzo replied quickly.

“No, where’re you from?” he asked and crossed his arms.

“Italy,” the otter answered,

clutching the bag of bread tighter. “Why’re you

in Germany?”

“My dad needed to find work and--”

“Oh, you’re here to steal our jobs, huh?”

The bear cut him off.

“Why don’t you take a hike through the Alps and go back to where you belong?”

It took Lorenzo a moment to string the words together so that they made sense in his mind.

“I didn’t steal anything.”

“You got that bread in your paws.

You only got that because we let you live here.”

“Please, leave me alone,” Lorenzo whimpered.

It was like moving from his small town near Bari to Venice all over again.

People picked on him because of where he was from,

only now the language barrier was another obstacle.

They proceeded to yell things at him

and had no idea what the words meant,

but inferred that they probably were insults in Swabian.

“It’s not as fun when you don’t know what we’re saying.

Learn German already, you stupid foreigner!

All you’re good for is waiting tables and stealing our money.”

“Why don’t you learn some manners?”

a large badger from across the road yelled out at the bullies.

The badger stomped towards them,

cracking his knuckles and flexing his arms,

his scowl housing a fiery ire.

Shaking a fist, he shouted obscenities at the bullies until they fled in fear.

The badger turned to the otter

and softened his expression.

“Are you okay?” “Yes, I think so,”

Lorenzo replied, relaxing a bit at the kind face of his rescuer.

“Thank you for helping me.”

“That’s good,” the taller boy said with a smile.

“Thanks for the help in math class.”

“I’m sorry.” Guilt seeped into the otter’s stomach.

This boy saved him and Lorenzo couldn’t even recall his name.

“What is your name again?”

“I’m Volker.” The badger put out a paw.

The otter shook it gratefully.

“I’m Lorenzo.” “I remember,” Volker said. Lorenzo felt another pang of guilt.

“Beh, I’m sorry.” He looked to the ground and clutched his groceries.

“It’s fine,” the badger reassured him.

“You’re still pretty new here.

Those guys are jerks. You don’t need to worry about them with me around. Ugh,

I can’t believe they said those terrible things to you.

They say some stupid stuff, but I’ve never heard them go that far.”

“I couldn’t understand some of it,”

Lorenzo admitted.

“Since you helped me with math,

I think I can help you with Swabian and teach you some swear words.” #

Despite the hardship of being attacked,

Lorenzo smiled at the memory of it because it had brought him close to Volker.

It was at that point he gradually stopped spending as much time with his neighbors

and started spending more time with his German boyfriend and classmates.

Volker introduced the little otter to new friends and people around town,

along with showing him the best cafés and restaurants. Through the badger,

Lorenzo learned about the different German television shows

and how to converse with others their age without sounding like a language textbook.

His father, on the other paw,

worked with other Italians and people from around the globe,

so Massimo usually spent his free time with his coworkers and their neighbors.

It was tough for Lorenzo and his father

watching their neighbors gradually leave over the years.

After Francisco graduated he went to Frankfurt.

The Tomruks moved to Munich to be closer to their children.

Helen received a job opportunity at a publishing house in Hamburg.

Looking back Lorenzo regretted not spending more time with them before they left.

“Lorenzo?” “Yeah, Volker?”

“You’ve been looking kind of sad today and you’ve been dragging your tail.

Is something wrong?”

Volker turned to Lorenzo, who stopped in his tracks.

“Um, no,” the little otter said and rubbed his arm.

“I know I’ve been a pain today.

I’m sorry if I said something that hurt your feelings.”

“No, you didn’t say anything wrong.”

“Well, I know I’ve been kind of a jerk lately.

The orchestra is hopeless and my parents gave me that talk again about how music is a useless career path.”

“I’m sorry about all that.”

Lorenzo gave his boyfriend a sympathetic look.

He wished he could help with all of Volker’s problems too, since Volker was his dutiful defender.

“Why do they always have to tell me that music is pointless?” Volker asked,

putting down his violin case so he could punch a lamppost.

“Why can’t they just let me go to a music school?

They have money and they both work in finance.

Orchestra club is fun,

and getting private lessons from Herr Farber is great,

but I want to play more.

I love music and no one sees that.

You’re so lucky.” “What do you mean by that?”

Lorenzo cocked his head and shrank a little.

“You want to study math and become a math teacher,

and your dad supports that.”

Volker picked up his violin case and started to walk again.

“Maybe if you said you wanted to become a music teacher or something else in the music industry

then your parents might be okay with that?”

Lorenzo suggested with a shrug.

“But I don’t want to teach.

You know I don’t have any patience for other people, especially children.”

The badger grimaced,

halting in place.

Shaking his head,

he continued, “We got off track,

so what’s wrong?” “Nothing,” Lorenzo said meekly.

“I’m fine. Really, I am.

We’re close to my place too.”

He motioned to a gray apartment complex.

There were Turkish and Greek flags taped to some of the windows.

The largest flag was an Italian one tied to a balcony

highlighted by the radiance of the afternoon.

“Hey, I wanted to say I’m sorry again.

I know I’m a jerk sometimes.” “Well,

you are sweet when you’re not angry at the rest of the world.” “I love ya,” Volker said as he stroked the whiskers on Lorenzo’s face with his thumb

and kissed him on the nose.

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow.

Bye.” He waved and hurried off.

“Ciao,” Lorenzo replied with a gentle smile.

Lorenzo drew a breath as he looked up at the Italian flag hanging off of the balcony of his apartment,

the amber sunlight slowly diminishing behind it

as the sky took on hues

of red. This was the the first of three parts of

“Tempus Imperfectum”

by Al Song, read for you by Khaki,

your faithful fireside companion.

Tune in next time to find out how [Lorenzo and Volker spend a day off together in the city

along with what’s actually been bothering the otter].

As always, you can find more stories on the web at

thevoice.dog, or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.