The dog’s name is Maple, or érable if you want the original language. Of course before ‘érable’ became Maple she was t’errible. Some might say feisty but to me, well, she had acute ADHD. “Don’t panic,” the wife says, “I’ll take her for training.” Now, they are both infected with ADHD. Good thing the dog has slowed down a bit over time, the wife, well she keeps on ticking, and kicking.
When I write for some reason I am in need of help filling out character personalities, so to make it easy for myself I just add in those I know, like érable. But when I’m not writing I’m walking, as in, the dog. Nice on a sunny fall afternoon, much worse any other time. But don’t worry, she is a well trained hound, so I was told. All she does is sniff whatever smells extremely bad, and if it smells extremely, extremely bad, she eats it. Or rolls in it, or barks at it, and occasionally does number two, which means I have to carefully scoop the number two up and place it into a nice neat carryall device until I can either dispose of it in my own personal garbage can, which in New Jersey we pay a steep price for weekly collection, or better, if no one is looking, deep into one of the neighbors yards.
Now, if the dog isn’t rolling, or sniffing, or eating, or pooping, well then she, like the wife, is socializing. They did go to the same school after all. And man can she gossip, and sniff all the private parts, and beg, and get people to stroke her the right way, and of course get treats fed her by the neighbors so our home dietary plan goes out the window, and get pet some more, while all I can do is watch and wait. Sorry, I digress. Now was I talking about taking the dog for a walk or how I have to keep the wife company when she goes to the mall. Life can get confusing at times.
Of course walking the dog does get one lots of exposure to the lives of those who live nearby. The dog lovers are obvious. They are always outside, rain or shine, waiting for the princess dog to pass by so they can pay homage and give her dog biscuits or beef jerky if they want to make me really jealous. And as they stroke the beast they give me the unabridged story of their daily adventure since the previous evening's discourse. I, of course, now have a running chronology up to and including the day before, of each and every one who awaits the daily return. But then there are the others too, those shy introverted inhabitants who prefer to keep their comings and goings quiet. Those who one has to work to get gossip on, if one wasn't standing outside listening to the neighbors as they pet the dog. So this too, like the dog biscuits, is force, which means the truth, if desired must be carefully extrapolated from what we do see and hear.
In this regard one does have to sift through the incoming streams of information to set aside conjecture from fact. After all, what do we really know about the man who lives alone and his backyard is hidden by a rather high solid fence? He may not really be holding ritualistic Druid summer and winter solstice pageants, though there does appear to be a lot of hot tub use on certain days of the month that coincide with the owner’s craigslist blast solicitation for help cleaning his bedroom. Those dates usually coincide with payday, and while bedroom is in the query advance, most of the hard work seems to be spent, as mentioned, in the hot tub as the neighbors listen to them…, well no one can really say what they do back there, after all, there is no definite evidence for the practices and doctrines held by the druids – so, in reality we know virtually nothing of certainty about them.
But linking their philosophy to the ‘immortal’ nature of a man's soul is not something to take lightly. After all, many religions originating in different geographic locals also bring the Pythagorean doctrine into play.
Whatever that means I don’t know, but I do know that I am still pissed. The last time the dog and I passed by the craigslist frequenting man the dog got a biscuit but I, try as I would, did not get an invitation to the next solstice celebration.
“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”
Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'. Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues. You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.
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