Chat
02-05-2015, 08:55 PM
Monday December 8, 2014
It is the middle of school term and my Mom has paid for me to come home for the weekend. I am not at my home in real life. Our skeleton of a home is next to a lake or ocean. By skeleton I mean most of the structure is missing. No room has more than two walls, white and opposite each other. Only the rooms closest to the lake have a ceiling and a floor. When I turn around and face away from the water the beach reminds me most of Antarctica. The gray lava rock has been broken down by millions of years of erosion into nearly sand, which has slid down the volcanic cone all the way into the water covering everything in its path. The buildings that do exists are long since abandoned and have been victims of weather and time. There is no plant life here at all. It feels more like an alien world than the terra firma we call Earth. I might as well be in a space suit looking at a lake of methane.
The beach has covered most of the floors. I don't know that we are on a volcano, but these Antarctic volcanic islands describe the setting perfectly. Even the sky matches, presenting a dull gray blanket of texture-less cloud cover. Everything is covered in this gray-black sand and rock except the few rooms in the front that stick out over the water. I arrive home in the late afternoon and spend the first evening with my Mom in one of the front rooms. The only furniture is a small television set on the edge next to the water, a single recliner in which my Mom lays, and some couch or something which I cannot see because I am sitting in it. We vegetate and watch television.
My dog Spencer is laying on the beach behind us. He is in a different room, the family room, which has no ceiling, no floor (or at least the floor is covered in beach), and no wall to separate him from us. At some point later that night or the next morning I get up out of my seat and walk over to him. He is laying curled up in a ball, head on the right, facing us just watching. I walk over and he picks up his head to greet me. I kiss him, hug him, pet him, and just give him some attention. I think about him. I had come home two or three weeks ago from school to visit him because he wasn't doing so well. He wasn't eating or walking, but the vet was able to cure him. He must have been eating while I was gone because he could only survive so long without food. A spike of endogenous chemicals (adrenaline?) shoots into my bloodstream as I realize why I was summoned home and I feel a complex emotion consisting of some combination of panic, fear, regret, and a sense that time is running out. I was brought home for the same reason as last time- Spencer is dying. God dammit! Why did I waste so much time last night?!? I spent the whole night watching television and ignoring him when I could've been laying with him doing the exact same thing. I feel terrible.
I bring him a scoop full of kibble for dinner and dump it on the floor in front of him. He begins eating some. I listen to the hollow crunching sound his teeth make inside his snout. My ears pick out the way the pitch of that sound drops and becomes muffled as he grinds the kibble into smaller pieces and it moves towards the back of his mouth. My Mom calls to me from the other room "Make sure you give him the small kibble!" This confuses me because we keep one giant tub of dog food, and there is only one size.
"Okaaaaayy." I yell back. He's eating the food so he must be fine. I spend time with him.
Time doesn't really exist here. There is a chronology of events and the time I have both here and with Spencer is finite, but the environment itself is timeless. That's why I couldn't really tell whether it was day or night earlier. The sun never sets. Likewise, at some point I look up and see a man standing over Spencer and I. He is at least sixty years old. He is white, has white hair, and wears square-ish glasses. In his right hand is a metal power tool which I cannot make out right away. This man is here to euthanize Spencer. The death warrant is already signed by my Mom and in his hands. I know intellectually that he is going to be given a lethal dose of pentobarbital and will fall asleep in peace, but my brain has finally recognized the power tool in the manâ€s hand. It is a circular power saw. I begin crying. But- but... "He ate food! He doesn't need to die! He got better!" I beg to my Mom, I beg to him; to anyone in earshot. I lean over Spencer, who is still laying on the floor, and put my face on his rib cage and cry. I wrap my arms around him and embrace him. He is warm and full of life.
It is the middle of school term and my Mom has paid for me to come home for the weekend. I am not at my home in real life. Our skeleton of a home is next to a lake or ocean. By skeleton I mean most of the structure is missing. No room has more than two walls, white and opposite each other. Only the rooms closest to the lake have a ceiling and a floor. When I turn around and face away from the water the beach reminds me most of Antarctica. The gray lava rock has been broken down by millions of years of erosion into nearly sand, which has slid down the volcanic cone all the way into the water covering everything in its path. The buildings that do exists are long since abandoned and have been victims of weather and time. There is no plant life here at all. It feels more like an alien world than the terra firma we call Earth. I might as well be in a space suit looking at a lake of methane.
The beach has covered most of the floors. I don't know that we are on a volcano, but these Antarctic volcanic islands describe the setting perfectly. Even the sky matches, presenting a dull gray blanket of texture-less cloud cover. Everything is covered in this gray-black sand and rock except the few rooms in the front that stick out over the water. I arrive home in the late afternoon and spend the first evening with my Mom in one of the front rooms. The only furniture is a small television set on the edge next to the water, a single recliner in which my Mom lays, and some couch or something which I cannot see because I am sitting in it. We vegetate and watch television.
My dog Spencer is laying on the beach behind us. He is in a different room, the family room, which has no ceiling, no floor (or at least the floor is covered in beach), and no wall to separate him from us. At some point later that night or the next morning I get up out of my seat and walk over to him. He is laying curled up in a ball, head on the right, facing us just watching. I walk over and he picks up his head to greet me. I kiss him, hug him, pet him, and just give him some attention. I think about him. I had come home two or three weeks ago from school to visit him because he wasn't doing so well. He wasn't eating or walking, but the vet was able to cure him. He must have been eating while I was gone because he could only survive so long without food. A spike of endogenous chemicals (adrenaline?) shoots into my bloodstream as I realize why I was summoned home and I feel a complex emotion consisting of some combination of panic, fear, regret, and a sense that time is running out. I was brought home for the same reason as last time- Spencer is dying. God dammit! Why did I waste so much time last night?!? I spent the whole night watching television and ignoring him when I could've been laying with him doing the exact same thing. I feel terrible.
I bring him a scoop full of kibble for dinner and dump it on the floor in front of him. He begins eating some. I listen to the hollow crunching sound his teeth make inside his snout. My ears pick out the way the pitch of that sound drops and becomes muffled as he grinds the kibble into smaller pieces and it moves towards the back of his mouth. My Mom calls to me from the other room "Make sure you give him the small kibble!" This confuses me because we keep one giant tub of dog food, and there is only one size.
"Okaaaaayy." I yell back. He's eating the food so he must be fine. I spend time with him.
Time doesn't really exist here. There is a chronology of events and the time I have both here and with Spencer is finite, but the environment itself is timeless. That's why I couldn't really tell whether it was day or night earlier. The sun never sets. Likewise, at some point I look up and see a man standing over Spencer and I. He is at least sixty years old. He is white, has white hair, and wears square-ish glasses. In his right hand is a metal power tool which I cannot make out right away. This man is here to euthanize Spencer. The death warrant is already signed by my Mom and in his hands. I know intellectually that he is going to be given a lethal dose of pentobarbital and will fall asleep in peace, but my brain has finally recognized the power tool in the manâ€s hand. It is a circular power saw. I begin crying. But- but... "He ate food! He doesn't need to die! He got better!" I beg to my Mom, I beg to him; to anyone in earshot. I lean over Spencer, who is still laying on the floor, and put my face on his rib cage and cry. I wrap my arms around him and embrace him. He is warm and full of life.