A Trip to the Dark Side Part Two

 

My friend Willie told me about a friend of his from the mortal side, Spencer, who, because of a cleric error, they sent to the Dark Place, where irredeemable souls go.  Unable to find help, Willie turned to me, and I put together a crack team, with Smoochy and Ashton, to penetrate the dark side to save Spencer.  When we did, we were quickly captured, sans Ashton, and they brought us to the Dark Lords, who said we were in our forever home.

Because I was the one who put the expedition together, it was my duty to speak up.  "There must be some mistake!" I said.  "We have a forever home on the light side."

"Not anymore," he said.  "Didn't you see the sign above the gates?  In case you didn't, it says: 'He who comes in may never leave.'"

"I thought it said: 'Free cookies,'" Smoochy said.

"We do have those," the Dark Lord said and sent one of his underlings to bring us a tray of cookies.  Perhaps, we should have been more cautious because they were demon cookies, but we dogs can't resist.  Unfortunately, they were burnt, which we should have predicted, getting cookies from land sometimes called Hell.

After getting our cookies without milk, we were brought to a cell with hard beds and no light because that's how they do it in Hell.  "Foley, do you have a plan to get us out of here?" Smoochy asked.  I told them I did but was lying.

A little demon brought us three bowls of gruel, slipped them under the bars and into the cell.  Smoochy hurriedly went over and began licking it up.  "How can you eat that?" Willie asked.  

Smoochy stopped:  "You ever eat kibble?  This isn't that bad."

I noticed a bit of brown fur on the demon's arm and recognized it.  "Ashton!" I barked.  "Are you here to save us!"

"At first, that was my plan," he admitted, "but then I got this job.   It comes with good health care, a 401 K, six week's vacation, and four months' paternity leave.  Honestly, it's sweet."

"But you would have to torture your friends!" Willie said.

Sure, there are drawbacks," Ashton said.  "But there is free counseling, and the pay is fantastic!"

I had heard enough and ordered him to open the door.  He mumbled something about me not wanting to see other Yorkies get ahead, then opened the door.

 

We hurried out of the cell but did not know where to go.   Ashton said they had given him a Star of Earendal, which could shine light into the darkest of places.  He took it out, and suddenly we could see.

It was horrifying.  There were dogs in cages everywhere, all trapped in the darkness.  "We have to help them!" I said. 

"Some of them are here for a reason," Willie said. "We don't want to release a bad dog."

"There are no such things as bad dogs," I said.  "We are born pure, but humans make us evil,"  I told Ashton to open the cages and free the dogs.  He agreed and let them out.  They carefully moved to us.  In the last cell, we found Spencer.  Willie was thrilled to reunite with his friend, and then we began to lead the massive pack of dogs down the corridor.  Then we hit a wall and could go no further.  We would have to retrace our steps and somehow get past the throne room and into the light.  I told the group to follow me when I saw the only creatures who could take joy in imprisoning a pack of dogs.

There were squirrels of unusual size, all wearing armor and spoiling for a fight.  The only way out was through them.

We charged.

TO BE CONTINUED

A Trip to the Dark Side

 

 There is a part of the Bridge we do not talk about.  It is called the dark side.  The sun never shines there, and nothing grows.  It is where the genuinely evil species go for eternity, and there is no way to become an angel for all those who enter.  

The Powers That Be here don't communicate with the demons who run the dark side.  They might be all-knowing and seeing, but they can't look into the darkness and don't want to either.

My good friend Willie likes to spend his days swimming in the river, but he also works in the Department of Angel Corrections, and while going over a list of dogs who passed but didn't come to the Bridge, he found a pup named Spencer, who he knew in New Jersey.  Spencer had been sent to the dark side after he killed a little dog in its yard.  But Willie knew it was the wrong Spencer, and he went to the Board with his findings.

The Board would not listen to him, so Willie came to me and said he was confident that Spencer had been sent to the dark side by mistake, and the Powers would not listen.  I hate to think of a dog suffering needlessly, and, even though it was perilous, I volunteered to go to the dark side and find the lost dog.  

Willie immediately said he wanted to go with me.  There was no place on the immortal side more dangerous than the darkness.   We needed a team of brave angels.  I chose my fellow fearless Yorkie Chelsea and Smoochy, who never met a challenge that caused him to back away.  

We had to go over the mountains and continue to head north.  Smoochy and Willie led the way, while Aston and I needed several breaks.  The larger dogs were patient with us.  Then we came to the gates with nothing but darkness behind it.  I asked them if they wanted to turn back, but none of them did.  We plunged into the night.  

I had brought a backpack filled with supplies.  The first one was a flashlight.  I turned it on, but the light barely cut through the darkness.  We tried to light matches, but the darkness snuffed them out.  While not being able to see was a hindrance, dogs rely on smell, which would lead us to Spencer, or so we hoped.  

Willie took the lead.  He was the only one who knew what Spencer smelled like, and hopefully, he would recognize his friend's scent in the darkness.   We could not see the nose in front of our faces and kept bumping into each other. Ashton asked me to switch places.  I thought it was because he was brave and wanted to cover my back, but my head went up Smoochy's butt every time we stopped.  It wasn't fun for either of us.  I didn't appreciate Ashton snickering each time it happened.

Suddenly Willie stopped short, and we all crashed into one another.  It took us a minute to realizes that something had trapped us in a cage, and Ashton was no longer with us.  Suddenly dark hooded creatures began dragging us.    We were brought into a dark castle and dumped on the floor.  We looked up to see a massive, dark lizard sitting on a throne with a long tongue.  "Welcome to your forever home," he said chillingly.  

TO BE CONTINUED

Beat This Caption

 

This is why I wanted her to pick up the paintbrush in the Doljanchi ceremony and not the stethoscope.

Monday Question

 

Where is your favorite place to sleep at night?

The Search For Maggie

I got a visit from my good friend Abbie this morning. Since arriving at the Bridge months ago, she has been looking for her Shih Tzu sister Maggie, to no avail. At her wit's end, she appealed to me for help. 

 

The powers that govern the Bridge try to keep siblings together, but with hundreds of thousands of pups passing over a day, it is easy for a dog to slip through the cracks and get lost.

 

I immediately seized on the most straightforward solution and told Abbie to wait for Maggie to appear in her mom's dream and tell her where her sister was. Abbie told me she had but wished she hadn't. Maggie had left her section to find her sister and was lost in the wilderness. 

 

Rumor was years ago, a dog named Moses left with his followers to find a land promised to him by a sibling and ended up wandering in the bridge desert for 40 years. That wasn't good. We couldn't let Maggie do the same. She might miss her mom's arrival, and that's would be a tragedy. 

 

I needed some advice, so I assembled my small council of advisors. Geordie excitedly reported he had created a new invention. It does smell what an amplifier does to sound. Maggie could pick up the smell hundreds of miles away, follow it and find

Her sister. We decided to give it a try. 

 

Abbie stood still as Geordie put what he called the smell amplifier 2000 around her neck. He turned it on, but nothing happened. He removed it from Abbie's neck and put it on the ground. He fixed it and was going to test it by putting it in a pile of leaves. Soon the whole Bridge would smell like a mid-October day. Just as Geordie turned it on, a skunk emerged from the pile and began to spray. The smell was so bad and widespread we had to shut down the Bridge for three days while it rained tomato

juice to get the smell out.

 

When the odor was gone, we met again and immediately passed a motion to dismiss any ideas proposed by Geordie. Then we got back to the matter at paw. Aran suggested I get one of my birds to search for Maggie from the sky. I had a better idea. The bird would carry Pocket by the collar, and she could search for Maggie.

 

"Excuse me?" Pocket, who had been chewing on a bone and not paying attention, asked. I told her my search plan. "I don't think so," she said. I explained that it had to be her because she was the smallest. Selfish Pocket still balked, but Abbie begged her to try. Pocket can't say no to a friend, and soon she was in the mouth of my best eagle Roe, searching for Maggie.

 

It indeed was a superb plan. Pocket could see for miles, and I think she was on the hunt, but angry dogs from other districts, upset that they had to spend three days inside because of the skunk cloud, used a catapult to launch poop at Pocket and Roe, causing them to retreat, and return home Maggie-less.

 

I was worried that we had no way to unite Maggie when Chey came up with a brilliant idea. We would acquire silent fireworks, shoot them into the sky where they would spell: "Maggie: It's Abbie. I am here." Maggie will follow it, and they will finally meet. We voted to buy the fireworks.

 

I asked my financial advisor Hobo to go with me to the cat side. The only place to buy fireworks is a shop in their village owned by Siamese twins. When we arrived, one was sitting on the counter and another by a window. I got a stern look from Hobo when I said I thought they would be connected, and he told me they were not that kind of Siamese. Despite me getting the negotiations off to a bad start, Hobo negotiated a fair price, and we brought them back to Doggyspace Villiage and set them off.  

 

Chey was right. Maggie saw the fireworks high in the sky and followed them. Two hours later, she emerged from the woods, and she and Abbie shared a long hug, and then we had a massive party for her. Maggie told her stories, and we told her ours. Then Maggie went to Abbie's house. That night they visited their mom together. Hopefully, two dogs visiting will make her mom feels twice as good as one. 

For Bentley

 

 

 it is always a mixed blessing When a friend joins us at the Bridge. While we are happy to see them, we are sad they have arrived. It is the same emotion people have in the Jury House on Big Brother:  great to see you. Sorry, you’re here.  

When word came that Winston from the great state of Maine was arriving, I had to quell Pocket’s enthusiasm. While they never met, my sister did spend an afternoon at Aunt Laura’s house where she was chief snuggle bug and cuddled with Bentley’s momma Madison. Pocket investigated all of Bentley’s scents, and when Momma Madison got home, Bentley did the same with the smells Pocket left. Subsequently, they became sniff pals.

Bentley was one of the few original members of Doggyspace, where dogs and parents met via the Internet 14 years ago and became lifelong friends. Bentley came to the Bridge a couple of weeks shy of his 17th birthday. His mighty, tiny body had finally succumbed to age. His mom knew Bentley was in her heart, and the only way to set him free was to shatter it into a million pieces. Bentley was free, and Momma Madison faced her greatest challenge:  living with a massive hole in her heart without her best friend.  Bentley’s brother Winston is with her and working on driving the sorrow away, but it will take time. Little dogs leave big holes.

When comforting a bereaved parent who has lost a dog they have lived with for more than a decade, people desperately trying to find the right thing to drain the fountain of sorrow will remark that the parent should be happy the pup lived a long life. But every day you live with a dog, they claim more of your heart that they take with them when they go. Parents don’t feel fortunate they had a dog that long. Grief is the enemy of reason. They want the pup today. Yesterdays are gone, never to come back.  Yesterday doesn’t matter when there is no tomorrow.

Bentley had, in his final mortal year,  an eye surgically removed. Anesthesia is dangerous in Smart and older pups. Bentley came through the surgery like a champ and didn’t let his lost eye slow him down. A week before his passing, he walked around the block. As much fire still burned in Bentley, his heartbeats were expiring, and when they did, his mom knew she had to make the ultimate sacrifice and send him to their forever home for the long wait until she joined him.

Bentley, being a friend of mine, had an advantage other new angels did not. I had visited him many times in his dreams and advised him what to expect upon passing over. Bentley ran over the Bridge with his tail wagging. He bounced up the stairs to Hobo’s landing and gleefully took the oath. When the rain seeded by the tears of so make people who mourned Bentley began to fall, I gave him another important lesson:  he no longer had to pretend he wasn’t in pain so his mom wouldn’t worry. Bentley nodded, and his tears joined those of the mortals on the grass.

Fortunately for Bentley, he is a Doggyspace pup and has dozens of angel friends who began working to repair his broken heart. Once we do, he can start working on his mom’s. On his first day, Bentley met so many old friends the sadness began to drift away. By the weekend, Bentley was strong enough to start helping Winston help their mom.

Doggyspace may have shut down five years ago, but to us dogs, we are still family and will work together to heal all our mons’ hearts until all members, their siblings, and parents make their final journey.  

A Pirate Tea Party: The Final Chapter

 

 First, while I was on a picnic with Hattie, Tiara, and Lily, Pocket found a chest of golden eggs.  Pirates, who had hidden the eggs, captured us, took the booty, and made us walk the plank.  Thanks to Pocket speaking whale, one named Bennie saved us and helped me retrieve the eggs, then he told us the eggs belonged to alligators who lived on Skull Island and were going to attack our village to get them back.  We had to find the alligators and return the eggs.  We swam to the island, and the snakes immediately surrounded us. 

 

"Foley, what are we going to do?" Lily asked as we stood tail to tail while the snakes squirmed around us.

 

"Give them Pocket and run?" I suggested.

 

"Don't be ridiculous," Tiara scolded me.  "She is not a filling meal.  She is an appetizer who would only leave them wanting more."

 

Hattie enthralled the snakes.  They gathered in front of her and poked their heads at her shoes. "What are you wearing on your paws?" I asked.

"My rattlesnake pumps," she answered.

 

I knew someday her fashion sense would be the death of us all.  "I think the snakes want them," Lily said.

 

"Well, they can't have them!" Hattie barked.  "They are the only footwear I have that matches my purse."

 

"Hattie!  Give them the shoes!" Hattie snarled.

 

"Heavens," she said.  "Why am I always the one who has to make sacrifices?" 

 

She kicked off her shoes and handed them to the snake.  Suddenly, they began to bow their heads to her.

 

"They are acting like you're their leader," Tiara said.

 

"Eww!.  I don't want to be a snake leader.  Arent' there salamanders in need of a monarchy?"

 

Regardless of her wishes, the snakes chose Hattie, lifted her by their heads, and carried her to a throne. Occupying the sear of power changed Hattie's disposition.  "Finally, a species who treat me with respect."

She ordered the snakes to leave us alone.  I asked her to inquire about the alligators, and two of the snakes offered to lead us to them.    When we started, Hattie stayed on the throne, enjoying her kingdom, until Lily reminded her that there were no sewing machines here.  She dropped down to join us, and every step of the way, she complained about her missing shoes and the sharp ground. 

 

We came to a tranquil pond.  Our snake guides slunk into the bushes.  Then slowly, the most giant, angriest, looking alligators, tinged in gold, rose from the water and lined up in front of us, with their sharp teeth twinkling in the sun.  Their leader stepped forward and asked why we were here.

 

I opened the pouch and carefully spilled the golden eggs on the ground.  The alligators roared and asked where I got them.  Before I could speak, Captain Tunes and Long John appeared with muskets.  It seems they had a whale of their own. and had been following Bennie.  'Now give us back our eggs," Long John said.

 

It appeared like, after all, we had been through, that the pirates would win.  Long John and Captain Tunes bent over the eggs just as they began to hatch.  A little alligator, who was very cute, popped its head out and sprayed a green liquid into their eyes.  They cried out and stumbled backward into the water.  There was a rush of activity by the bodies.  We didn't want to think about what the alligators did to them.

 

Then the recently hatched alligators turned to Pocket and said, "Momma! "  They all gathered around her.  "Foley," she said excitedly.  "I am  a mom!" 

I was sure this was the last step in our becoming alligator lunch, but instead, they gathered around Pocket and told her that she was welcome to stay and raise the babies.  She was excited to be a mom until she realized she would have to live in this swamp.  She explained to the babies why she couldn't stay, and with a tear in her eyes, began to leave.

 

I stopped our group and asked the alligators if they wanted to have tea.  They agreed, and we had a wonderful time with them while Pocket played with the babies.  When we left, we decided to visit once a month for an alligator tea, and so Pocket could see her little ones, we could have tea, and Hattie could be queen for a day. 

 

Bennie brought us home.  We were pretty exhausted and slept very well that night.