16 June 2008
Jake
Posted by Dirk under: been drinking; musings .
Been getting my drink on tonight for some reason and started scanning some pictures of my old dog Jake. Making me melancholy as all get out. It’s been several years since I had him put to sleep but when I look at these old pictures of him I really miss him. He was truly a once in a lifetime dog. He marks a time in my life. When I try to remember things from my past, Jake is one of the framers of that time. Before Jake, During Jake and After Jake. During Jake was mostly a good time.
At some point when I was a kid I read or heard or saw a story that said that on Christmas Eve, animals could talk to us. We could understand their speech or they could understand ours. That was one of my fantasies. Even when I was old enough to know better I would sometimes whisper to whatever animal I lived with (yes, even Jake) on Christmas Eve and hope they would answer me.
A few days ago I heard mention of a story that was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award (best short science fiction of the year) called The evolution of trickster stories among dogs of North Park after the Change by Kij Johnson. You can read it online here. I like it. It’s odd because just a few days ago I was out walking Tattoo (aka TooToo, aka FrouFrou, aka Fruit Loop, aka The Loop) and was thinking about What If we could talk to each other and it turned out he was an asshole or we just didn’t like each other? What a bummer that would be. And then I read Kij Johnson’s story and that was an odd synchronicity. The story is rather depressing for a dog lover like me but I still like it.