Picture this. It is the dead of night, you are asleep, vulnerable to be sure but safe in the security of your home.
A crash awakens you. You are confused, muddled. More than usual. You turn to the person beside you. Wait, it's the hind end quarters of a dog. You turn to the person on the other side of the dog beside you.
"What the f....?"
"It was nothing. Go to sleep," he mumbles sleep drool spilling from his mouth, his hair rumpled, his eyes pressed closed. "It was probably Darcy."
I look at the dog between us. Darcy the Dog has a rather odd way of sleeping. She is on her back with her right front leg stretched stiffly in salute. At times I wonder if we rescued her from a Nazi Youth Camp instead of the Humane Society. But I Digress
"Darcy's here. She's beside us," Sleep drool spills from my mouth.
"...it was the cat..." he mutters in his sleep
"The cat's been dead for six months."
"...bummer..."
"Richie! There was a crash in the kitchen! Hello." I am nearly fully awake now and my heart is pounding. I listen. There is silence. "We're going to be slaughtered in our bed."
Darcy the Wonder Dog opens one eye and looks at me, then promptly disappears under the covers.
"Richie get up, get up, get up, get up"
"Ok, I'm up already. What's wrong?"
"Didn't you hear that? There was a crash in the kitchen."
"Huh." Richie stumbles from the bed and blinks, recoils from the blinding light as I turn on the lamp. "Good lord, turn that off. Please. Thank you. Go back to sleep and I'll go see what happened."
"Oh no, not on your life." I fumble for a flashlight in my drawer. Nothing. I run to his side of the bed as he totters into the bathroom to pee. I look in his nightstand and finally find a flashlight.
You realize by this time whoever it is could have put the house on the market and sold it, we are taking so long.
"What are you doing up?" he asks, "and what are you doing with a broken flashlight?"
"Shit. Well, in the right hands this could be a formidable weapon."
"There were some key words in that sentence."
"You mean, 'in the right hands'?"
"Those would be the words." I handed him the flashlight.
"Stay here. I'll go look."
"Not on your life. You die - I die. We go down together, no matter what form of vile, horrible fate lies ahead."
"That's really sweet. Ok. Put on a robe and some slippers..."
"Richie, I think he's made a roast by now. Can we just go defend our home?"
He turns to the bed and lifts the covers. "Darcy, you stay here." We both agree on this. The dog must not be harmed.
Anyway, I've drawn this out as long as I could. It was nothing, no animals were harmed in the making of this post. An overhead fixture panel decided it was time to commit suicide and jumped to it's death. There was no one in our home, no terror but what I had created in my mind. We were safe again to crawl back into bed and reassure Darcy that she would live till morning.
I forget again - just why did we get a dog in the first place?
Happy New Year, y'all!!
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