~Canary-Yellow Dresses~

Chapter 1

The once multi-eyed moon, rendered sightless over the years, its eyes punched out by wayward meteors leaving it marred with dusty sockets can't see its own light shine through the window and onto the hardwood floor of a small house nearly a quarter-million miles away. Nor can the moon see the mouse its light has changed from gray to silver as it nibbles cookie crumbs spilt onto the floor by the dark man asleep on the vintage sofa in a dark room. The mouse cleans up the crumbs then lifts its whiskered snout into the atmosphere of the house and detects peanut butter. The mouse trots towards the kitchen, and after a short while the dark man asleep on the sofa is awakened by a "SNAP!" His eyes open wide as he asks the darkness "what was that?" then remembers the trap he set in the kitchen. The moon has since gone west and shines its light on other things.

Chapter 2

Around noon the dark man opens the door of the small house and steps outside. He stands under the sun which seems to get brighter as he grows darker. He walks over to the edge of the porch and lifts the trap's metal bar from the broken neck of the mouse and shakes its corpse into the bushes there. He stands scratching his belly then notices flowers abloom at a streetside corner of the yard. He walks over to them to get a closer look. He doesn't know what kind of flowers they are. He doesn't know much about flowers or plants in general. The flowers are red and yellow with green leaves. He bends down and picks one of them and holds it to his nose. It doesn't smell like anything. He drops the flower onto the weedy grass he is supposed to keep cut short using the lawn mower the landlord keeps in the garage. There is a can for gas in there, too. He hates lawn maintenance equipment. He hates the noise it makes, the way it feels in his hands. He always feels like a fool when he uses them. "I might as well go get beer while I'm up and about" he thinks to himself and begins the three-block walk to the small, local, store where he buys his groceries and beer. The houses along the sidewalk look to him like tombstones with doors and windows. No one is about. He assumes the inhabitants of the tombstones are all at their awful jobs. His mother died recently and left him enough money to survive for a year or so without working. He wonders if when the money is gone if his mind will allow him to get an awful job of his own or cause him to blow his brains out so he can go hang out in heaven rent free. He wonders if he would see his mom up there. He has his doubts. He imagines heaven must be a huge place and to him all the clouds up there would look pretty much the same.

Chapter 3

Henry didn't mind the homeless lifestyle, and in many ways he actually enjoyed it, but summer was beginning to blaze, and clean, cool, water was getting hard to find so he thought it might be time to find a human to stay with for a while. He found what seemed like a quiet neighborhood with streets lined with small houses and little traffic so he casually walked up a sidewalk while sniffing the ground and air around him as a way of sizing things up. Henry had walked a few blocks when he noticed a dark man sitting on a porch drinking beer. There was a lawn mower sitting in the small, half-mowed yard of weedy grass. He liked the fact the yard wasn't perfectly manicured. It meant the human wasn't real fussy about neatness.

Henry slowed down in front of the house and the dark man and pretended to sniff the sidewalk in a serious manner while checking out the dark man's demeanor out of the corners of his eyes. All seemed mellow, so he slowly approached the dark man in a zig-zag rout until he got close enough to cause the dark man to ask "where did you come from, fella?' Henry took that as a cue to walk right up to the dark man and look into his eyes with tongue hanging out while exaggerating thirst. "You thirsty? Asked the dark man, then he stood and went into the house, which had an upbeat Rossini overture streaming through the open door. The dark man soon returned with a stainless bowl full of water and set it on the bottom step of the porch. Henry went to lap lap lapping up the cool water until the bowl was almost empty. He then licked drops off his chops and walked up the two other steps and plopped down on a shady spot on the porch while the dark man started the lawn mower and cut the remaining half of the yard then put the mower back in the garage. Having finished his bi-weekly chore, the dark man went inside the house then returned to the top step of the porch and sat down with another beer. After a few minutes Henry got up from his nap and went over to the dark man and gave him a soft nuzzle with his snout. "You are probably hungry, too." said the dark man to Henry, then went into the house which still had Rossini overtures playing on a laptop, then returned with a cold, leftover hamburger patty. He broke bite-size pieces off the burger and tossed them to Henry, who caught them in his jowls, mid air. The dark man noticed the dog wasn't wearing a collar, and so of course wore no ID tags, either. The dark man decided the dog could hang around for a while and see how things went. He thought a little companionship might be nice.

Chapter 4

The dark man got up from his seat and went over to some bushes near the porch and retrieved a rubber ball he knew was there. He tossed the ball towards the edge of the yard and said to the dog "Go get it!" Henry just sat where he was. He had no interest in rubber balls. The dark man noticed a cat walking along the sidewalk across the street and wondered if the dog would chase it. Henry saw the cat, but didn't budge. Henry had no interest in chasing rubber balls or catching a mouth full of screeching cat. Henry thought chasing things was stupid.

"Let's go inside and see if we're at war, yet the dark man said to the dog, and they both went inside the house and closed the front door. The dark man looked at the dog and said aloud: "You need to have a name. Let me look at you and see what name you look like." The dog had a square head like a pit bull while the rest of his body looked like it might be that of a lab. His coat was dark brown with some white splotches on his flanks. "I know, said the dark man, you look like a "Henry." Your name is Henry, now." Henry decided he would stay with the dark man for a while.

Chapter5

The dark man is a news junkie. He monitors several news entities on internet social media. Every day when he turns on his PC to check the news he fears seeing images and videos of bombed out major cities of the United States in flames with huge billows of black smoke rising from them. He expects the war. He believes it's inevitable. He's convinced human kind is insane for the most part and wasn't meant to exist for very long. The dinosaurs existed much longer than humans will, he believes, and they would have existed much longer had nature in its randomness not wiped them out with an asteroid. He sleeps on the old sofa in the small living room of the house and keeps a loaded handgun under it. There is a small bedroom in the house he uses to store a few boxes of stuff he hasn't thrown away, yet and it's where he keeps his clothes and other possibles. He wouldn't feel comfortable at all sleeping back in that room. He needs to be on the front line of his dwelling in case of bad guys.

Chapter 6

The dark man and his friend, Henry spend many hours on the porch while the weather is friendly. The porch is covered, so even on extra hot days it's fairly pleasant in the shade of it, and the dark man has an electric fan he sets pointing at them for extra comfort. With the arrival of Henry the dark man now has someone to talk to, and does, frequently. "I was just thinking," began the dark man one day out on the porch. "Oh, boy. Thought Henry: here we go with more philosophical jibberish."

"I think it's strange after hundreds of years of exploration by astronomers that no assholes have been located anywhere but on Earth. It seems to me that nature would make at least one asshole somewhere up there. I don't see how she can get around it. Assholes are everywhere on this planet. I bet if we went out of our way to meet the neighbors we would find at least three or four assholes living right here on this street, and I bet there are several more spread out in the neighborhood. I just hope if astronomers do discover assholes elsewhere they don't invite any of them here. There are plenty enough to go around already."

Henry lifted his head about an inch, looked at the dark man, then put it back down on the porch boards and went back to sleep.

Chapter 7

It is some time between midnight and dawn and the night is moonless. The mouse roams freely in the house while the dark man and dog are asleep. The mouse has found the dog's food bowl and the bits of dry food on the floor around it. It nibbles for a while, then catches the scent of peanut butter. The mouse follows its nose to the peanut butter in the kitchen. The mouse finds it easily. It is on a small piece of wood on the floor between a refrigerator and a hot water heater that stands like a sentry in a kitchen corner. A loud "SNAP!" awakens the dark man. "Henry? he calls: you okay, boy?" Henry doesn't respond. He is sound asleep on his small stack of folded blankets on the floor of the bedroom where the dark man never sleeps. "Ah." Says the dark man to himself. "It's the trap. I got another mouse." The dark man puts his head back down on the pillow, and as he goes back to sleep he wonders if killing mice will keep him out of heaven.

Chapter 8

It's July 3rd this hot, Los Angeles suburb Saturday and most people have the holiday weekend off. It looks like all the dark man's neighbors are home. Their cars are still in the driveways and parked on the street. The dark man fires up his laptop to check what's happening in the world. It's about noon, so he has his first beer beside him. Henry snoozes on the porch. The front door is open. "Oh, my God!" exclaims the dark man. Henry hears him, and lifts his head and perks his ears for more details. "Oh, my God!" the dark man exclaims again, then gets up from his PC and steps out onto the porch with his beer. Some of his neighbors are coming outside, too. "Have you seen the news?" one of his neighbors hollers from across the street. "Yes. replies the dark man. I wonder if we'll be hit." he yells back to the neighbor. "We might." responds the neighbor.

More people have left their houses and are standing in their yards and sidewalks. Some are pacing in the street. Several of them have bottles of booze and beers. The dark man chugs what's left of the beer he has then goes into the house and brings out the five cans left of his six-pack. He walks to the curb followed by Henry. He introduces himself to some of the neighbors. They start chattering nervously like budgies in a Walmart cage. They are all drinking, now. Henry lies belly-down on a cool lawn. "This is different." he thinks to himself, then rests his jaw on his paws and closes his eyes.

The dark man is now chasing a neighbor's whiskey down with his beer and is feeling fine. His neighbors seem to be fear-free too, at the moment, when they all look down the street and see the crazy hippy chick of the street pushing a clothes rack full of about twenty long, canary-yellow dresses towards them. "These were outside Macy's on display. she hollered. Check them out!" One of the neighbors handed her a coffee cup full of booze and said "join the party!" "Thanks!" she replied. "Anyone want to try on some dresses help yourself." A neighbor's wife walked to the rack and took one of the dresses off its hanger and pulled it over her head. "It fits good." she said, then watched as other women helped themselves to the dresses. jack, a neighbor from across the street feeling spry, grabbed one of the larger dresses from the rack and pulled it on over his clothes. "Does it make me look fat?" he asked, then let out a drunken "guffaw." Some of the other men pulled dresses on, then the dark man decided he would join in and pulled one on, too. Henry looked up at the dark man weaving slightly while standing on a lawn in a yellow dress. "I think i'll go for a walk." Henry thought to himself and discreetly began walking down the street. He could still hear the humans being loud and silly a block away. Three blocks away he couldn't hear them anymore. Henry saw the flash while sniffing a white, paper, bag held loosely by tall weeds in a vacant lot.

The Poets of Muse Holler

Chapter 1

Wordsworth was a rabbit who lived in soft and green Muse Holler along with various other countryside creatures and the few humans who owned some of them such as the cows, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, most of the dogs and some of the cats.

Wild animals such as deer, birds, rodents, raccoons, frogs, and rabbits lived on their own.

Humans and animals have dreams, now and then, and one day as Wordsworth napped within a tangle of blackberrie vines he dreamt the beginning of a poem, and when he awoke it was still alive in his imagination, and because he enjoyed the thought of composing a poem he decided to complete it while he was awake.

He toyed with various words and lines for an hour or so until he felt that his poem was finished. He then recited it silently to himself and it went like this:

The fields are planted.

The flowers are slanted

away from the breeze.

The birds have nested.

Clouds are rested

a tad above the trees.

Oh, summer is fine!

My life has a shine!

I'll hoppily do as I please!

Now that Wordsworth had completed his poem he yearned to recite it to others, so he left the blackberries and hopped along one of the trails that led to where he knew there would be a good chance of encountering listeners.

Wordsworth came upon a cow, got her attention and recited his poem. When he was through, the cow politely smiled and mooed, "That was very nice."

Wordsworth then met a rooster beside a road and recited his poem to him, even though the rooster showed no interest, and continued to peck away at the ground.

The next potential listener Wordsworth found was a horse grazing on tall grass. As Wordsworth cleared his throat and began to recite, the horse looked up and said, "Oh, please. I do not want to hear your silly poem." Then the horse trotted away to a nearby pasture.

Wordsworth was not discouraged, and decided to hop over to a nearby pond where he discovered an old turtle basking in the sun. When the turtle first saw Wordsworth he thought he might be bothersome and so began to draw his head inside his shell, but as Wordsworth began to recite, the turtle gradually stuck his head back out and listened with interest. When Wordsworth had finished the poem the turtle asked, "What is your name?"

Wordsworth replied, "Wordsworth."

"Well, said the turtle, my name is William, and I think that is a wonderful poem. Thank you for sharing it with me."

"You're welcome, and thank you for listening!" Said Wordsworth, delighted that his poem had finally been enjoyed by someone.

"Have you more poems to share, Wordsworth?" William asked.

"No. That is the only poem I ever made."

"I think you really must make more poems, Wordsworth. You have a gift, in my opinion, and it would be grand if you shared your gift with others. Would you like to recite your poem to some friends of mine? I know they would enjoy it."

"Of course." Replied Wordsworth. "I would love to!"

"Fine." Said William. "Shall we meet here tomorrow at noon?"

"Yes." Replied Wordsworth.

"OK. See you then, Wordsworth."

Chapter 2

After Wordsworth left to hop homeward, William made his slow way to where he would likely find his friend Marge, a black and white cat, who liked to layze and preen by an old wooden fence gate that opened to an old house nearby that was no longer lived in by humans, but was now home to several mice.

William found Marge just where he thought he would, and was glad he hadn't made his slow way there for nothing.

"Hello, Marge." William said in greeting.

"Hi, there, William. How are you this fine day?" Marge asked, in reply.

"I'm doing quite well, thank you." Said William. "I met a new poet today. He is a rabbit named Wordsworth."

"Oh, wonderful! Where is he?"

"He went home, but has agreed to meet with us tomorrow. I wonder if you would like to find our other poetry friends and ask them to join us by the pond at noon tomorrow? You know how slowly I get about. You can locate our friends much more quickly than I can."

"I would be more than happy to, dear William. I will go look for them right away."

"Great. I will see you tomorrow, then." And with that Marge took off to find the other poetry lovers, and William made his slow way back to his place by the pond.

Chapter 3

As Wordsworth hopped along towards home he felt very encouraged about composing more poems, and was excited about his new interest and the prospect of making friends who might enjoy listening to him recite them.

"Afterall," he thought; "what's the use of making poems if there's no one to share them with?"

Wordsworth looked at and listened to everything along the way for inspiration, and as he settled down to sleep in his burrow that evening ideas and visions flowed through his mind as poetic streams of creativity. Wordsworth slept very well that night.

Chapter 4

When Wordsworth awoke the next morning the poetry gathering was foremost on his mind and he was excited about it. As he nibbled new grass shoots, moist with morning dew, he silently recited his poem to himself just to be sure he still remembered it:

The fields are planted.

The flowers are slanted

away from the breeze.

The birds have nested.

Clouds are rested

a tad above the trees.

Oh, summer is fine!

My life has a shine!

I'll hoppily do as I please!

"Yes, I do think it is a fine poem." He thought to himself, then, he realized that the poem didn't have a title.

"I know," Wordsworth thought.; "I'll title it "Summer." " And that's what he did, then having nibbled his fill of breakfast, he hopped towards the pond to meet William, the turtle, and his soon to be, at least he hoped, new friends.

I will never see the sea.

It's much too far a walk for me.

By the time I put my feet in sand

I would be one-hundred-ten.

I will never find the mighty redwood stands.

They're far away in distant lands.

If I started now to go to them

I might get there when I'm one-hundred-ten.

I'll never stroll a great city street.

Getting to it would wear out my feet.

If I started now I would get there when

I turn one-hundred-ten.

But I'm perfectly happy beside this pond.

To get here I simply wake-up, stretch, and yawn.

~An Encounter With Rails~

Several years ago I worked in a factory making plastic parts used in furniture. I had the day-shift, which was 9am-9pm. The work was very boring, and the twelve large machines positioned throughout the building made a lot of racket as they spewed their widgets.

A paved hiking trail went through the thick marshy area behind the factory. Small trees, bushes, and blackberry vines made excellent cover for rabbits, birds, garter snakes, and other small creatures. It also provided a nice quiet place for me to take most of my lunch breaks. I had a few favorite spots in the bramble to sit and watch and listen for birds, hoping to add another to my lifelist.

My interest in birds began when I was a small boy armed with a ten-cent slingshot. These slingshots were poorly made, and had very little range or killing power, so in order for me to have a chance to at least stun my prey I was required to get within a few feet of the birds. I'm glad now my kills were few, but the stalking experience came in handy when I matured from slingshot to binoculars and field guides.

The lifelist I mentioned earlier is simply a list of birds identified by individual birders. My list is one-hundred-seventy-five names long, but one sighting in particular had a dramatic affect on me, and much more substantial than the check mark I put by its name in my field guide.

Virginia rails are fairly common, but due to their shyness they are usually heard rather than seen. They are weak fliers, so they prefer to walk or run through their habitat of low-lying plants. Virginia rails actually have a flexible vertebrae which helps them wend their way through brush and marsh.

I had just spent about a half hour break a little ways into the trail's greenery, and had begun walking back to the factory. As I stepped out onto the trail a family of Virginia rails; cock, hen, and at least ten of their chicks who resembled black cotton balls on tiny legs were crossing the trail towards me. They were as surprised to see me suddenly appear as I was to encounter them in this way.

The hen immediately "klick klick klicked" her danger call and hurried her brood into the brush. As mother and children made their clumsy, yet orderly get-away dad stood his ground in the middle of the trail. He opened his longish, thin, red beak and began screaming at me. His eyes were alive with an unyielding fierceness. He showed no signs of running or flying away. It was as though he had made up his mind that if a member of his family was to die at the hands of this giant it would be him, not them. I immediately stepped back in order to give the rail assurance that I meant no harm, and that it was safe for him to rejoin his family, which he did.

As I entered the factory door I was still feeling a strong sense of awe at what I had witnessed: a ten-inch bird screaming at a creature a hundred-fifty times its weight: "Come on! Come after me! Leave my family alone!"

I then noticed that three of my co-workers were huddled near the front door of the factory. They were nervous about something, and were prepared to run out the door at a moment's notice.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"We just saw a MOUSE run across the floor!" they replied.

© Dan Tompsett

The History of Potato Salad

Many of us don't know the history of potato salad. It was first concocted by Ezra Bovine in 1899. Ezra, an Idaho potato farmer and alcoholic irrigator for hire, first served potato salad at the grand opening of the Twin Falls Bar and Grill. My mother's mother was there, and recorded the event in her diary:

June 3rd:

"That drunk brother of mine showed up at the gala grand opening of the TFBG with a large bowl of mush. He called it "potato salad." Of course, everyone there knew he just boiled some spuds, tossed in mayo and onions he stole from his neighbor's garden and brang it so's he could take advantage of the free beer pot-luck. It wasn't bad, but could have used a dollop of mustard and relish."

Ezra Bovine's daughter was only ten years-old at the time, but she made reference to his creation in a letter to the editor of the Twin Falls Gazette several years later:

"As unpopular as my stance may be at this time, I cannot vote for the current Republican candidate for mayor of this fine city with a clear conscience. He reminds me of my father's potato salad which was served at the gala grand opening of the Twin Falls Bar and Grill back in '99. The candidate is soft, mixed-up, and smells of pilfered onions. A dollop of mustard might have helped his image, but seeing it on his tie as he staggered out of a Kimberly flophouse last Saturday morning leads me to believe he has little knowledge of condiments, gourmet fare, or how to steal away in the night, which in my opinion disqualifies him from aquiring my vote, and I sincerely believe my fellow citizens, all upstanding christian spud farmers, (but for the one Jew, Mr. Lettuce Iceberg), will be of the same mind."

Yours, respectfully,

Ima Bovine

Twin Falls

© Dan Tompsett

~TROUT FACE SOUP~

Bob Withabee fished Rock Creek in Twin Falls, Idaho for trout. The creek, it is said, is somewhat polluted, but Bob didn't care. He liked the look on the trout's faces. They always seemed to be smiling and happy, even as they expired in his kreel.

Bob thought he had a way of leaching out the pollutants. He did this by making soup out of the fish. He left the heads on, and whenever he checked the pot, trout faces smiled up at him from simmering broth and quartered onions.

Bob snagged a crawdad in Rock Creek once, and chose to add it to his trout face soup.

The crawdad never smiled when alive, nor did it crack even the slightest grin as it cooked. Bob came to the conclusion that crawdads, at least the one he caught, have no sense of humor.

He didn't want his trout face soup tainted with the spice of sadness or curmudgeonery, so he pulled the now red crustacean from the pot and placed it in a small sauce pan and covered it with a lid so he wouldn't have to look at it. The trout face soup was all smiles again.

After dinner, Bob removed the crawdad from the sauce pan and took it outside, set it on a fence post in his back yard, then went indoors and sat in his rocking chair where he could watch through a window. Bob was confident a cranky crow would come along sooner or later to investigate, and sure enough, just a few moments later, one did.

The crow, feathered black as its disposition, cocked its head to the right, studied the creature a bit, then grabbed it in its beak and flew off with it.

"My home is happy again," Bob stated to himself, then took his shovel and an empty can to the compost area of his yard to dig for worms, and if he should happen to unearth a grub he would toss it away.

"Grubs are grumpy," believed Bob Withabee.

~The Lunatic~

When I arrived at my sister's groundfloor apartment she was standing with her door open. She was vexed about a young woman who was sitting on her small concrete porch. The woman was a stranger, but had chose to make herself at home on the porch and play a game which resembled Monopoly. There was a board opened in front of her with small objects here and there. Miniature white boxes set up like a tray had tiny items in them. There were also a few baggies with things in them placed beside the board. I could see that my sister was upset about the young stranger who refused to go away when told to. I felt a sense of outrage at the woman's indifference to my sister's stress, so as I stood over her demanding that she "get the hell out of here, now!" I kicked the small, non-descript objects towards her. Her face had an expression of absolute blankness. It was as though I were cursing the moon. As the woman gathered her game and left she seemed to make way across the parking lot as though she was moving slowly on an orbital path.

As I entered my sister's apartment I felt a very strong pang of guilt. I wondered how I could be so cruel to an obviously ill, weak, and most likely harmless human being. I realized that not only was I the lunatic who had stepped onto the porch, but a cruel and not-so-harmless lunatic, at that.

--------------------------------------------------

The once multi-eyed moon, rendered sightless over the years, its eyes punched out by wayward meteors leaving it marred with dusty sockets can't see its own light shine through the window and onto the hardwood floor of a small house nearly a quarter-million miles away. Nor can the moon see the mouse its light has changed from gray to silver as it nibbles cookie crumbs spilt onto the floor by the dark man asleep on a vintage sofa in a dark room. The mouse cleans up the crumbs then lifts its whiskered snout into the atmosphere of the house and detects peanut butter. The mouse trots towards the kitchen, and after a short while the dark man asleep on the sofa is awakened by a "SNAP!" His eyes open wide as he asks the darkness "what was that?" then remembers the trap he set in the kitchen. The moon has since gone west and shines its light on western things.

Around noon the dark man opens the door of the small house and steps outside. He stands under the sun which seems to get brighter as he grows darker. He walks over to the edge of the porch and lifts the metal bar from the broken neck of the mouse and shakes its corpse into some bushes there. He stands scratching his belly then notices flowers abloom at a front corner of the yard. He walks over to them to get a closer look. He doesn't know what kind of flowers they are. He doesn't know much about flowers or plants in general. The flowers are red and yellow with green leaves. He bends down and picks one of them and holds it to his nose. It doesn't smell like anything. He drops the flower onto the weedy grass he is supposed to keep cut short using the lawn mower the landlord keeps in the garage. There is a can for gas in there, too. He hates lawn maintenance equipment. He hates the way it looks, the noise it makes, the way it feels in his hands. He always feels like a fool when he uses them. "I might as well go get beer while I'm up and about" he thinks to himself and begins the three-block walk to the small, local, store where he buys his beer. The houses along the sidewalk look to him like tombstones with doors and windows. No one is about. He assumes the inhabitants of the tombstones are all at their awful jobs. His mother died recently and left him enough money to survive for a year or so without working. He wonders if when the money is gone if his mind will allow him to get an awful job of his own or cause him to blow his brains out so he can go hang out in heaven for an eternity. He wonders if he would see his mom up there. He imagines heaven must be a big place and to him all the clouds would look pretty much the same.

Henry didn't mind the homeless lifestyle, and in many ways he actually enjoyed it, but summer was beginning to blaze and clean, cool, water was getting hard to find so he thought it might be time to find a human to stay with for a while. He found what seemed like a quiet neighborhood with streets lined with small houses and little traffic so he casually walked up a sidewalk while sniffing the ground and air around him as a way of sizing things up. Henry had walked a few blocks when he noticed a dark man sitting on a porch drinking a beer. There was a lawn mower sitting in the small, half-mowed yard of weeds and grass. He liked the fact the yard wasn't perfectly manicured. It meant the human wasn't real fussy about neatness.

Henry slowed down in front of the house and the dark man and pretended to sniff the sidewalk in a serious manner while checking out the dark man's demeanor out of the corners of his eyes. All seemed mellow, so far, so he slowly approached the dark man in a zig-zag rout until he got close enough to cause the dark man to ask "where did you come from, fella?' Henry took that as a cue to walk right up to the dark man and look into his eyes with tongue hanging out while exaggerating thirst. "You thirsty? Asked the dark man, then he stood and went into the house, which had an upbeat Rossini overture streaming through the open door. The dark man soon returned with a stainless bowl full of water and set it on the bottom step of the porch. Henry went to lap lap lapping up the cool water until the bowl was almost empty. He then licked drops off his chops and walked up the two other steps and plopped down on a shady spot on the porch while the dark man started the lawn mower and cut the remaining half of the yard then put the mower back in the garage. Having finished his bi-weekly chore, the dark man went inside the house then returned to the top step of the porch and sat down with another beer. After a few minutes Henry got up from his nap and went over to the dark man and gave him a soft nuzzle with his snout. "You are probably hungry, too." said the dark man to Henry, then went into the house which still had Rossini overtures playing on a laptop, then returned with a cold, leftover hamburger patty. He broke bite-size pieces off the burger and tossed them to Henry, who caught them in his jowls in mid air. The dark man noticed the dog wasn't wearing a collar, and so of course wore no ID tags, either. The dark man decided the dog could hang around for a while and see how things went. He thought a little companionship might be nice.

The dark man got up from his seat and went over to some bushes near the porch and retrieved a rubber ball he knew was there. He tossed the ball towards the edge of the yard and said to the dog "Go get it!" Henry just sat where he was at. He had no interest in rubber balls. The dark man noticed a cat walking along the sidewalk across the street and wondered if the dog would chase it. Henry saw the cat, but didn't budge. Henry had no interest in chasing rubber balls or catching a mouth full of screeching cat. Henry thought chasing things was stupid.

"Let's go inside and see if we're at war, yet" the dark man said to the dog, and they both went inside the house and closed the front door. The dark man looked at the dog and said aloud: "You need to have a name. Let me look at you and see what name you look like." The dog had a square head like a pit bull while the rest of his body looked like it might be that of a lab. His coat was dark brown with some white splotches on his flanks. "I know, said the dark man, you look like a "Henry." Your name is Henry, now." Henry decided he would stay with the dark man for a while.

The dark man is a news junkie. He monitors several news entities on internet social media. Every day when he turns on his PC to check the news he fears seeing images and videos of bombed out major cities of the United States in flames with huge billows of black smoke rising from ruins. He expects the war. He believes it's inevitable. He's convinced human kind is insane for the most part and wasn't meant to exist for very long. The dinosaurs existed much longer than humans will, he believes, and they would have existed much longer had nature in its randomness not wiped them out with an asteroid. He sleeps on the old sofa in the small living room of the house and keeps a loaded handgun under it. There is a small bedroom in the house but he uses it to store a few boxes of stuff he hasn't thrown away, yet and it's where he keeps his clothes and other possibles. He wouldn't feel comfortable at all sleeping back in that room. He needs to be on the front line of his dwelling in case of bad guys.