“The client is a dog?”
I sat up. Bernie was gazing at the photo. I could see it, too. One of my guys was in the picture? Where? And then I spotted her: a tiny fluffball with huge dark eyes, reclining on a satin pillow. I knew satin pillows on account of Leda having had one, although it got chewed up in a kind of frenzy, the details of the episode not too clear in my mind. But that satin taste: so strange and interesting, a vivid memory. I glanced around the Dry Gulch bar: no satin in view.
from Thereby Hangs A Tail (which has new cover art, by the way).
“Why not?” says Spence.
“Why not?” Admin says. “Have you looked at the lawn lately? The quote garden unquote?”
“I was thinking of kicking back, sipping coffee, putting my feet up.”
“Think again.”
Everything is different underwater: the sights, so blurry; the sounds, actually kind of clear; the smells, not nearly so strong as above water and coming to me in a different way, impossible to describe; and the feel, which is the best part.
But not now. Now it was all bad. I was spinning slowly in blackness and also going down. I didn’t want to go down, wanted more than anything to go up. Up was the only place not so completely black. Swim, big guy! You’re a good swimmer. Swim! Bernie’s voice, so clear he could have been right beside me. The truth was he was even closer than that. I swam toward the place of incomplete blackness.
- coming Sept. 10.
Happy birthday, Dad – and many many more.
Welcome Dax & Menchi, Bunny, Apple from Down Under.
