What despair look like in a beagle
There was a bright spot in our lives yesterday (well, it is unbearably bright all the time outside here in the brutal sunglare that reigns over the HellMouth, but you know what I mean). The justadogs were trying to breach the thin barriers separating us from the contents of a 40 lb. sack of dog food. I, being a big dog, was successful in helping out, and so for one brief moment we were able to eat our fill. Which was fortunate, because the effort in penetrating the sack was substantial, we needed the nourishment.
Meanwhile, my main activity (when not being subjected to diverse torture sessions) has been studying all the doors in the Mundito. There are a huge number of doors here, at least 3 doors just for the justadogs and at least 4 for the dogpeople. However, I am pretty sure there are more doors than that, because I am periodically surprised to find another door.
I have become convinced that at least one of the doors leads back to Planet California. So I keep going through all the doors, hoping that this one, this time, will lead me back home.
My hopes were enhanced when I realized that, from time to time, the Tyrant Kidnapper closes off different sets of the doors at different times. When he does this we often hear strange voices on the other side of the closed doors, as if people were popping in from elsewhere and then departing -- all before the doors are opened for us again.
I surmise that there is no one door that leads home all the time, but rather, different doors lead to different places at different times. So when the Tyrant-Kidnapper sets forth to block a door, I try to sneak across at the last minute before the barrier is set in place. And once the barrier is set, I test it continuously, and burst through the moment the barrier becomes penetrable as one of the secret sessions concludes.
I am most optimistic that there is a door out of summer, a portal really, underneath the She-Pup's bed. It is usually as hot underneath her bed as it is outside the Mundito, but I am drawn back again and again, for I can sense a thinness in the barriers there between worlds.
Once I am quite certain that, just as the shield wall on one of the justadog doors was beginning to rise, and I was peaking underneath, for just a moment the green hills of home flickered before my eyes, and a cool breeze brought the scents of our own back yard to me. But by the time the barrier had risen far enough for me to leap through, it was gone once more.
I continue to try all the doors and the area under the bed, but I must confess, I am in despair.
And the Feast of St. Vigeous is almost upon us, when a devious foul plan the Tyrant-Kidnapper has for me will come to fruition. I see it in their eyes.
-- Eddie
What despair look like in a beagle