As I just told my wife, easy for you to say when he’s not on your foot.

I’m three. Or so they told me when they gave me the hamburger last time from the white bag with the yellow legs on it. Which is supposed to make me dumb I guess. But my kind aren’t dumb except for the dumb ones. What we are is ancient instead. I have an old guy who thinks he’s the boss and a mommy who thinks she is too but I know my history whether they recognize it or not. I know every one who has lived in this place because I can smell them. All I need. There was one like me before and the boss and mommy thought I would be just like him.

I am but I’m not too and I know this because I am a sight hound and we are special because we can see mice running in the grass a hundred yards away and all the way through eyes into what bosses and mommies are thinking right now. Not all of us but me anyway. Why I worry about the boss because we have the same blood and there is sadness that runs through our heads the same way we run through fields.

The boss is sad because he used to run his mind through the plastic kibble he never ate but always chewed with his paws in front of the box of pictures he couldn’t take his eyes away from. He has become a sad boss and I have all I can do to take care of him. He needs to go to bed at the right time, which is seven lie downs after my dinner and out, but he never does. He watches the box of colors without his plastic kibble and he doesn’t run in his head the way he did.

His head only works like mine does in dreams. He sees things happening there and the things happening there are terrible. I know the best way out of those dreams is Cheezits and Cheetos. He has these but they don’t please him and I keep trying to make him see that I see what he sees and it is not so bad because there are Cheezits and Cheetos and that is enough.

Eyes are enough. My kind doesn’t need plastic kibble to speak. We just look what we want to say. What I am doing now and you hear what I look don’t you?

I am looking this thing because I want my boss to smile and he does not know how anymore. I am looking harder than I need to look because I need to find how to give him the look he needs to be better. I am seeing names of things he sees and I am working to run through them like he should. Like the worst out there is only one more deer to be run down.

Raebert

So. I’m suddenly a retired blogger. The webmaster who was posting my work suddenly stopped. That’s okay, actually. I probably said what I had to say several times over. What’s not okay is the feeling that your fingers should still be lodged in the dike, preventing the imminent catastrophe.

It’s probably ego that’s holding you against the wall that is the failing dike. You don’t want to admit you never made a difference, ten fingers or none.

Ego fades with age. But habit holds time hostage. I’ve noticed the phenomenon that stars of long-lived TV series look the same year after year. Then, when the show is cancelled and they appear on a new series, they’re suddenly much older. Less makeup, fewer kind cameras? Maybe they just quit clenching their youth.

How I feel. I fought so hard for so long, maintained the same grim convictions at all costs, and now, cancelled, I feel, well, different.

Not better. It’s like the end of a losing war. Defeat was not real as long as you kept fighting, no matter what casualties you saw on the battlefield. But when you lay down your arms at last, there IS a lassitude that sets in. I know it has set in on me. Even the cats and dogs are staring at me strangely.

But every end, even disastrous ones, portend a new start. That’s what this is. My heart still beats, I will still write, and –I know my own DNA by this time — I will never ever give up on what I believe in.

I know that wasn’t exactly a ringing invitation to join me here, but do accept the invitation. When you’re not always in combat, you can be in better tune with yourself and others. You can laugh more easily. Even on the gallows.

I intend for us to have some fun here. And there are donuts in the lobby.

Robert