2018-06-28 - 2:10 p.m.

When your dog dies, it's all the little hundred tiny things that you miss. Just now, a delivery truck's brakes did their whoosh-grunt, and it sounded just like his whoosh-grunt he'd do when he was through with standing for the moment, when he was settling down. Earlier, walking through the front room, to check on the mail, as I've done so many times, I had the feeling that I was just about to, once I rounded the bookcase, kneel down and rub his ears. But he's not there, of course, on his smelly matted rug, looking up at me, curious if it's time for a walk, and he hasn't been there for two days now, and I miss him terribly.

In an hour, it will be the time when I would take him for his afternoon walk. Yesterday's would have been number four hundred thousand and today's would have number four hundred thousand and one, and he was good boy, and we called him Shambles, and here's what going to happen an hour from now or two or tomorrow or in a week. I'll clap a happy clap or open a can of beer or do something sharp and loud and I'll think: and now there'll be a jingle-jangle and here'll come the old guy, around that bookcase, looking, peeking, seeing what the fuck we're getting into.

As for right now, it's all the little rubs, the pets, the Goofballs and the Shambots and the Old Mans, all of it out there, still, just out of reach, fading soon, I'm sure, but not yet, definitely not yet.

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