Dogma (floofinition) – a canine’s mom.
In use: “Though he was male, the puppy needed to be raised, so he had no choice but to be the puppy’s dogma.”
Wednesday’s Theme Music
This song’s release and popularity in 1975 began changing my thinking. While I’d always tried to see others’ point of view, I often failed, and slipped easily into the comfort of being me, sure of what was going on, and surer about how others live. I had some inklings that all was not as I thought from newscasts about riots, war, politics, and social upheaval, and I knew from friends, movies, and reading that lives often appear to be fine on the outside but it was rank darkness behind the scenes.
Then came this Janis Ian song, “At Seventeen”. As a boy, I thought the girls had all of the breaks. They controlled it all. We boys were the ones struggling with social graces and talking to girls. I didn’t know what it meant to a girl to meet a boy who seemed to like who and said he would call her, and then didn’t. I didn’t know what it meant for her to watch others being chosen, or how difficult it was, coping with body changes, and struggling with social perceptions and self-perception.
Life is usually more nuanced, layered, and complicated than many realize. We think everyone is the same, that all words mean the same, that every action carries the same weight. That these things aren’t true are lessons I keep learning and forgetting.
Living for Two
In family lore, that first one was a tragic coincidence. Sitting in the waiting room, he stopped looking at anything, diverting focus to that day, doing the math that he’d done before. He’d been six, so almost fifty years had ridden by. Memories of that day sharpened, expanding in his mind. Running across the street, he’d only seen a sliver of turquoise and chrome after the car’s tires were screaming with braking noise and its horn was blowing.
He’d not felt anything. It’d been like flying off a swing and sailing through the air. He remembered seeing one of his red Nikes leaving his foot. “That’s all I remember,” he used to tell people who used to ask. Not many asked any more, halle-fucking-lujah. Truthfully, when he cracked the vault open, he remembered it all. Didn’t like telling people about the pain like a glove closing on him, or the view from above as people ran to his bloody body, and his sister’s screaming and sobbing. He’d need to be a masochist to enjoy remembering that day. No, thank you. Lost in that day to all but the family was Pancake’s death, like him, hit by a car, but unlike him, failing to survive.
That’d been the first time. Second was ten years later, when he’d had pneumonia, missing all of December. Most of the second and third weeks were spent weaving in and out of consciousness and delirium. When he emerged, they told him that Butterscotch had died. While that loss saddened him, they were relieved, because they were sure that he was going to die.
His third near miss was while he was in the sandbox. An IED took out some of his squad. As the scrambling to cover and save them commenced, three rounds went through him. He lived. Back home, though, someone shot and killed sweet little Crystal with fur like black velvet and emerald eyes.
This time —
The nurse called his name. He was led into the doctor’s inner sanctum. There he was, tall, black, and elegant behind his desk, managing to be solemn and smiling at once. “Please sit,” the doctor said, as he was doing it. The doctor was always courteous and polite.
He said, “You look concerned, doctor.”
“Because I am,” the doctor said with a smile flash. “It appears that all pancreatic cancer has vanished. There are no signs that I can see of it at all.”
It should have been good news, but he felt sad. “I’m not surprised. My cat died this morning.” He’d meant to say, “of cancer,” but he’d truncated the statement.
“Your…cat?” Puzzlement flickered in the doctor’s light brown eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“So am I,” he distantly said, extending the logic of what he was experiencing. The doctor spoke more, and he listened and responded, but mostly he was thinking, should I get another cat? If I do, and something else tries to kill me, the cat will probably die. I’ll live, but is that fair?
When he stepped into the California sunshine on the quiet street, he’d decided. He’d already killed four cats. That was enough death for him. As he started his car, he acknowledged, his decision made him very, very nervous.
It was a miracle that he saw the little flash of movement as he pulled his BMW out of the parking lot. Slamming on the brakes, he stared for seconds and thought, “What the hell was that?” Then he knew, it’d been a cat.
Rushing out of the car with sudden urgency, he found the little gray fellow under a bush. Looking up at him, the cat opened his mouth and wailed before jumping into his reaching arms.
He held the animal against him. A deep purr replaced its meow. With the feline against his chest, he closed his eyes. “I promise you, I’ll be very, very careful,” he said.
The cat chirped back. Resolve coursed through him. Of course, he’d be careful. He had no choice.
He was living for two now.
Floofgic
Floofgic (floofinition) – 1) A pet’s power to apparently influence the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.
In use: “The cat knew when she had a migraine, and came to sit with her, using its floofgic to alleviate the migraine in minutes. She never told others this, but she knew from being away that the cat had floofgical powers that helped her heal.”
2) A pet’s reasoning according to their world view.
In use: “By their floofgic, whatever he was eating was meant for the cat and dog, too, just as their floofgic stated, if he was sitting, his lap was available for them to nap on.”
The State
He said, “I’m really optimistic. I think I have a chance here.” He frowned. “Or am I in denial?”
She continued to focus on her laptop. He said, “That’s your opening, sweetie.”
She said, “You’re not in denial. You’re in California.”
Bravetoe
His socks had a hole which could have been put there by specification, designed to be part of the sock and inserted on the production line, because they were so regular, but it was the product of his left foot’s great toe. Although the toe and nail resembled common toes (and nails), the toe continually used its nail to cut its way out.
Although it’d been happening with his socks for years, it wasn’t until he saw it on his shoes that awareness took on significance. He liked to walk and purchased many shoes for that purpose. The latest generation of Adidas, New Balance, Nike, Under Armour, and Saucony activity shoes that he wore were made of a mesh material. He’d read the material was made of recycled plastic. (He’d never looked it up on the net because he didn’t trust the information on the net, and vetting it as truth required hours of work. He also privately admitted (that is, to himself) that he hoped it was true that the shoes were made of recycled plastic.) The thing is, his big toe was cutting up through his activity shoes’ mesh. There wasn’t anything on his right foot. It was only the left.
Because he had an active imagination, he began to watch the toe more often, specifically trimming its nail back in an effort to slow down its escape efforts. Imaging his toe crying, “Freedom,” as Mel Gibson had when he portrayed William Wallace in a movie, he nicknamed his toe Bravetoe. It was partly whimsy, but also acknowledgement that the toe had a personality and seemed to have a goal.
And a toe like that, who knows what it would do if it ever escaped its prison? He suspected it would probably inspire the rest of the toes to try to do the same, a possibility that he did not want to contemplate.
Although he did.
The Looks
Don’t you love it when you’re walking and encounter others, and say, “Hi” or “Hello” and they look at you like “WTF is wrong with him?” That makes me laugh, which prompts them to give me another look, which makes me laugh more, and they —
Well, you know.
Michael Seidel, writer 