Chapter 2: Decision

The morning's getting on, and I've barked myself hoarse. I have to be careful because the water in my dish is running low. Granted, I could probably nudge the toilet lid up if I tried hard enough.

Someone will come eventually. Red had friends, some good for him, some plain wrong. Both sets were always dropping by. And there's his kids, the twins, Sally and Zach. They're going to be right fucked up when they find out. I hope they're not the ones who are going to find him like this.

I thought to stave off the howling crazies I'd write my story. This may sound strange to a human reader. But yes, dogs can write. In fact, dogs are the ordained scribes of the universe. The original writers. The only writers. There is no piece of writing that has not first been written by a dog. Human writing is simply the transcriptions of things originally put down by dogs. Obviously we don't write with pens, paper or keyboards. We just inscribe our thoughts directly into reality. These thoughts then assemble themselves in libraries on the inner planes. Human writers frequent these repositories in their dreams, leaf through the selections, and then imperfectly transcribe what they've read when they wake up. Every dog knows this.

Another thing: every dog grows up with the pressure of writing something. If you don't write something, you don't get transmoleculerized to a dogstar when you die. Or if you do--because one of your friends has written you into his story--you wind up in some shitty sector of the afterlife service industry. Not the happiest fate. Like most of the dogs I know, I've spent my life postponing this moment. I know and have used all the excuses: I need more life experience, haven't yet sniffed enough butts, just need to go for a walk first to clear my thoughts... But really, I'm 105 years old. Time is running out. The time that takes for time to run out is the time to write your ticket to the dogstar.

Undoubtedly, the only human who'd transcribe this is himself a hack or amateur. But I'm no picky beggar. Besides, there's the extra motivation of absenting myself from the presence of that corpse over there.

So here goes.