Novel Excerpt 02-16-12

image (C) Bill Renzulli, used with permission :-)

When Emily got the two whippets out of the van, Zeke was a little excited, too, though he was staid compared to Hope. She was zig-zagging around on her lead, wagging her tail, and grinning at her Emily. Fun! This looks like fun! They walked on the grass outside a large building, and Hope could smell all sorts of different dogs.

“Holy schmoly what the heck is that hairy monster?”

Little Hope felt every hair along her back prickle to full attention, and she heard herself sound the alarm. “Danger! Danger! Hairy MONSTER!” She had never in her young life seen such a big, hairy dog.

“Hope!” cried Emily. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you bark before! You actually do have a voice. It’s alright, sweetie, it’s just a Malamute.”

“Oh it’s just a Malamute,” barked Hope. “Whatever the heck that is, but good grief, what do you know about danger? You’re only a human. Oh my stars!”

Hope raised herself to her tallest, by standing on her tippy-toes. “Get back! Get away from us! I’m a very important protector of my human, who doesn’t have the sense to let us put her safely in the van, obviously. Hey, Uncle, a little help here?”

The terrified puppy glanced sideways at Zeke, who was unfazed by the Hairy Monster. Maybe he hadn’t heard her.

“Look Out. Warning. Danger. Back off, Hairy Monster, you don’t want me to use the power of my teeth! They are sharp and strong, let me tell you.”

Her little body bounced with each bark, legs stick straight, tail up, neck stretched tight as a tug o’war toy to make herself look as big and imposing as a nine month old, skinny little Whippet puppy could look. The Malamute waved his huge tail over his back and acted friendly and non-threatening. Hope could not believe what she heard her Emily say next.

“Could my puppy meet your dog? She’s never seen a Malamute.”

Novel excerpt 01 26 12

    

      After their breakfast in the morning, Emily called, “Time for walks!” The pack gathered in the dog room at the back door. Zack explained to Hope and Proper that since their Emily was terribly slow, and was so handicapped with her limited human senses, she was understandably frightened about getting lost. For that reason, whenever they were out of the yard, their Emily tethered herself to each of the dogs, except Driver.

     The bad thing was that she put the tethers around the dogs’ necks. The Elders – Queen Raine, Thelonious, Zack  – were thrilled at this whole tether notion.

     “You’ll get used to it,” said Zack. “We all wear them, see?”

     Hope felt a little choky, but she mimicked her uncle by holding her head up and trying to ignore the thing around her throat. Proper threw himself on his back.

     “Gack!” he protested. “This thing is cutting off my air! How do I get it off of me?”

     Queen Raine stamped her feet.

     “Oh do get up, you little dweeb. We’re all waiting for you.”  She looked up at her Emily.“You insist on bringing horrid puppies into our pack and this is what we get.”

hug your hounds :-)

Novel Excerpt 1 25 12 - Excessive Greeting Disorder!

[In which Proper, Joe, Thelonious, and Raine return from a day at a dog show with Emily, and reunite with Hope, Zack, Driver, and Emerson.]

Proper blasted through the kitchen door, followed by Joe in a mock race. Thelonious bounded in next, and even Her Highness allowed herself a bit of silliness, woo-wooing her hello to Emerson and doing some mini zoomies around the kitchen. The dogs in the house were at the ready, having been alerted by the van crunching up the driveway. Zack howled gleeful hellos, and Driver, always vocal, bellowed his deep, nonstop Labrador woof, woof, woofs. Hope, the quiet one, wagged her tail against a cabinet door, adding a statico drumbeat. Seven sets of dog toenails played scritch-scratch ratt-a-tatt on the tile floor as they scrambled around. There was glorious chaos. Celebratory canine jazz.

hug your hounds

Novel excerpt 01 22 12

Emily ran out and grabbed Hope’s bedding from the van. It wasn’t a crate pad after all, but an old comforter from Emily and Emerson’s bed, folded up. The end result was more like a cloud than crate bedding. Emily gathered it up in her arms and kicked the van door shut, and in that moment, with the comforter clutched close to her chest and the faint smell of Hope in her grasp, her throat closed around her soul and she couldn’t breathe. She shook her head, angry with herself for being caught off guard, and tears flew as she did. She wiped her face on the comforter, feeling anything but comfort.

hug your hounds

Novel Excerpt 01 21 2012

Emily started to get a bit annoyed.

She must be hoarding a dead squirrel in the yard. I don’t have time for this, Emily moaned. Damn dog.

She pushed the full dinner bowls to the very back of the counter and pointed at Proper and said, “Leave it,” in her most businesslike voice, and went out to the yard again.

“Little Hope, dinner! Dinner! Come on, Hope. Hope?”

Just a splinter of worry crept around the corner of her consciousness. Where was her dog? Emily was sure she was out in the yard. Hope was always the first one in when the food dishes came out, not the last. Maybe Emerson had accidentally closed her in the bedroom. Relieved at that notion, she ran upstairs.

“Little Hope did you get locked in here?”

But as soon as she opened the door she knew that she was talking to an empty room. Now the first feeling of real fear closed around Emily’s throat. Where the hell was her dog?

She threw every door in the house open, searching in every closet, all four bathrooms, and she even went down in the basement, perfectly aware of the futility of it all, but compelled to look.

She looked out in the yard again, pleading,  “Please, Little Hope! Where are you?”

She didn’t realize that she had started to cry but her face was soaked.

Her husband heard the panic in her voice. He stepped out of his study.

“Did you look in the bedroom? Maybe she got shut in the bedroom by mistake.”

“I’ve looked in the bedroom, in the basement, in the yard a hundred times, Emerson. I tell you she’s not there. Little Hope!” she yelled to the house's walls. 

“I’ll go look again.”

This was nuts. Where was her little dog? She couldn't have gotten out. Finally convinced that Hope wasn't in the house or the yard, she threw leads on the confused pack of whippets, who were in collective wonderment as to what the heck happened to the whole dinner process. Their woman seemed to have totally lost her mind, and now, instead of giving them their bowls of food, she had decided to go for a walk. The whippets were fine with that, but the lab thought a little reminding was in order.

“Woof,” he said, eyes smiling counterward, “you forgot our supper.”

“Driver, come on. Get over here now. We’ve got to find Hope.”

The old lab, for the umpteenth million time, forgave his woman and wagged slowly over.

As they headed out to the back fields, the dogs felt their woman’s alarm, and noticed that she was searching everywhere with her useless human eyes. They heard her call the little one’s name over and over.

Proper felt lost. His Emily’s fright and his own loneliness were making him feel too heavy, as though he were walking through a deeply plowed field. He was losing his footing.

They walked the entire two mile loop in the big back fields: down the tractor trail along the cornfield, left along the woods to the wheat field, through the woods to emerge at the soybean field, and up the hill that brought them back to the cornfield and home. 

Emily called for her Little Hope, at times through tears, other times with an edge of anger, but calling, calling, calling.

The woods filled with the her voice. 

“Hope. Little Hope! Come here Hope. Where are you, Hope? Here Hope. Oh, Little Hope please come here.”

And finally, surrounded by her dogs and her very worst fears, Emily sat on a flat field rock and heard a sound bleed from her soul. A long, loud keening sound.

She knew she had lost her dog, and the rest of the pack howled her sadness to the sky.

******

That's it for today. 

Hug your hounds

Novel Excerpt 01-18-12

Illustration (c) William F. Renzulli, MD

There is a Facebook group called Fans of Mama Pajama Tells A Story - do feel free to join! I've started posting random excerpts of the Novel In Progress. One of the group's generous members wondered how she could share the excerpts, and I thought posting them here was as good a way as any.

I'm not taking the best piece of writing on any given day. Just the starting point of that day's writing/re-writing/editing. I figure every paragraph should be my best. Every paragraph should be engaging enough to stand alone with a brief intro into the scene.

That's the plan, Stan!

Here is a quick catch up for you. Hope is a 16 month old whippet puppy, owned by her breeder, Emily Hunt. Zack is Hope's maternal uncle. Martha is Emily's friend from obedience class, who has a bulldog named Babe. Babe and Martha are in the ring, doing the Heel Off Lead pattern.

p. 127 of re-write #3

The judge started barking her commands.

Forward. Halt. Forward, right turn, fast!

Babe and Martha marched in unison. Babe waddled along, her back rolling side to side with each step, and her lower canine tooth jutting jauntily over her puffy upper lip. Some of the humans watching around the ring chuckled during the “fast” part, as Babe bounced and waddled with her bowed legs beside her woman’s calf.

Normal, left turn, halt. Forward…

“Uh-oh,” said Emily.

Hope looked at her Emily to see what was wrong, and turned to look where her woman was looking. Babe was sitting in the corner of the ring in a patch of shade, where they had done the last halt. Martha was doing the heeling pattern by herself.

The judge’s eyes rolled.

The crowd chuckled.

Martha looked down for her dog and saw nothing but air and grass. She turned and looked behind her. Babe smiled at her from her nice spot in the shade.

“Babe, heel!”

The bulldog slowly got up and ambled over to her human, glancing from side to side at her adoring fans and wiggling her butt for effect.

“Oh, yes. I am Babe the bulldog. Feast your eyes on all this gloriousness!”

Folks in the crowd were holding their mouths in their hands, trying not to laugh out loud.

About turn, slow.

“Oh, my, if she goes any slower, she’ll be going backwards,” Hope heard her woman think.

Normal, right turn, halt. Forward, about turn, halt. Exercise finished.

Even the judge sounded relieved.

Novel Excerpt part three (fiction)

I'm sorry if you came here looking for the excerpt. I've edited and re-written it since I posted it here. I'm pleased with it now! I'll save the pages for any agents that are willing to look.

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hug your hounds

Novel Excerpt part two (fiction)

Sorry! I've re-written and now I'm very pleased with the results. FINALLY! Maybe someday this will actually be a book.

hug your hounds

Novel Excerpt part one (fiction)

Emily Hunt sat at her computer. The phone startled her.

“You better come now. She just had a contraction.”

Lucy’s voice, rich and sixty, was usually a source of comfort for her niece-in-law. On that night it carried all the calm of a roller coaster, a little wild and out of control.

“Coming,” said Emily. “I’ll be right there.”

Still clutching the phone, Emily hurried down the hall, and burst into her husband’s study. A big yellow Lab and three whippets skittered after her, their toenails trying to find purchase on the old hardwood floor. The dogs had been sound asleep in Emily’s computer room. They entered Emerson’s den, doing the wake-up-shake-all-over with sleepy eyes and tails wagging, eager as ever to join in the fun.

Emily held the phone up as an explanation. “Zelda’s in labor. I’m on my way. Are you okay with the dogs?”

Emerson looked at his wife and smiled. She was so excited that he could feel waves of electricity surrounding her. He loved her.

Illustration (C) W.F. Renzulli, MD

(C) Patience Renzulli, all rights reserved

hug your hounds

Well...

I know you Dear Readers are waiting for the Grand Poopbah prizes to be announced, and they will.

Today is our one year blog-o-versary (it's actually almost over) and something very exciting happened. I printed up a rough, rough, rough first draft of the novel and gave it to a volunteer reader!!! Oh my stars, I thought the day would never come. But it has, and it feels oh so marvellously ... better. Like an itch that's been scratched, or a perfect back rub.

Now all I can think about are the changes I want to make in the rewrite, and the parts I want to expand, and the relationships I want to develop (in the book). It's all good.

but.

The first draft is done!

hugging my hounds, and my saint of a husband, and my friend and advisor Rhonda, and all of YOU, Dear Readers

Book Excerpt!!!

For you, dear readers.
I am finishing up the first rough draft of my novel. I believe giving birth to my son was easier and much less painful!
I hope you enjoy this little excerpt, in which puppy Hope goes with her Uncle Zack to her first Obedience Class with their Woman.
I am not too proud to ask for encouragement. At this point in the writing, I am so full of self doubt and oh, yikes.

When the Woman got the two whippets out of the van, Zack was a little excited, too, though he was staid compared to Hope. She was bouncing around on her lead, wagging her tail, and grinning at the Woman. Fun! This looked like fun! They walked on the grass outside a large building, and Hope could smell all sorts of different dogs.

“HOLY SCHMOLY what the heck is that hairy monster?” Little Hope felt every hair along her back prickle to full attention, and she heard herself sound the alarm. “Danger! Danger! Hairy MONSTER!” she barked. She had never in her young life seen such a big, hairy dog. The Woman told her it was all right, it was only a Malamute, whatever the heck that was, but good grief, what did the Woman know about danger?

“Get back! Get away from us! I’m a very important protector of my Human, who doesn’t have the sense to get us back in the van, obviously. Hey, Uncle, a little help here?” The terrified puppy glanced sideways at Zack, who was totally unfazed by the Hairy Monster. Maybe he hadn’t heard her.

“Look Out. Warning. Danger. Back OFF, Hairy Monster, you don’t want me to have to get physical!” Her little body bounced with each bark, legs stick straight, tail up, neck stretched taught as a high wire to make herself look as big and imposing as a nine month old, skinny little Whippet puppy could look. The Malamute, (a very large, husky/wolf looking breed developed to pull heavy loads on a sled) waved his huge tail over his back and acted friendly and non-threatening. Hope could not believe what she heard the Woman say next.

“Could my puppy meet your dog? She’s never seen a Malamute.”

“Are you completely wacko, Woman?” Hope gave a token woof, but got smaller as her Woman actually approached the Monster. Zack, on the other hand, had apparently taken total leave of his senses and seemed to be actually pleased to see this mutant beast. The two dogs wagged tails, and sniffed noses and privates, while Hope did her best to become invisible behind her insane Woman. She tried to sneak a sniff at all that hair, but darted back when the hair noticed her. After a while, as the humans rattled on in their inane spoken language, the Monster assured Hope that he was, after all, a Good and Honorable Dog, and she gambled a sniff, survived that, and met him properly. He didn’t eat her, and he smelled so interesting, and she was glad to make his honorable acquaintance. But she still kept a wary eye on him. Sort of like you might be friendly to a warty troll, but you wouldn’t turn your back on him.

After everyone was pottied they went into the building. So many dogs, and such a racket Hope had never heard indoors. But since she had been lure coursing, which had been even louder and oh so much fun, she wasn’t too scared. Although there were certainly stranger looking dogs here than there had been at the field trials. There were short, midget dogs, and big fat dogs and poor dogs whose faces were mashed in and lordy so many of them had way too much hair. There weren’t any other whippets in sight, although there was a Giant. She had seen them at the coursing events, and heard them called “greyhounds.” Hope felt a great deal of pain coming from this one, a Queen, who had suffered terribly, and not too long ago. She was surrounded by the sick yellow color of fear, with streaks of jagged red panic. Hope pulled toward the greyhound; she said to the Woman, “We need to help her.” And for once the Human seemed to hear her, and headed towards the greyhound.

“This sounds like the races. Are there shocks here? Are they taking me back? Don’t let them take me back. Oh don’t let them take me back!” The poor greyhound was panting and frantic.

“Back to what, Your Majesty?” asked Hope.

“The track, the track, the track,” panted the grey. She was just shy of hysterical and the whippet puppy couldn’t understand.

Zack said, “No, I don’t think they’ll take you back.” He stood tall and calm and kind. “It’s good here. A little silly, but it’s a great place for teaching the Humans. Do you have a good One now?”

“Back to the track, taking me back to the track, backtrack, oh!”

The poor grey’s eyes were wide and blind with terror.

“Do you have a good human NOW?” Zack licked the grey’s muzzle.

“What? Oh, yes, this one is very good. He doesn’t ignore me. I sleep in his bed, and he cares. There’s no shocking. No loneliness.” She looked up at her Human and her great, long tail wagged, even through her panic. “Yes, he’s a good Human and I love him. But I’ve loved other humans and they used cattle prods on me and I never slept in a bed and I hurt and they didn’t ever care. They just didn’t ever care. Am I back there? Is this the track? It’s loud. It’s so loud.”

“I don’t know a track,” said Zack calmly. “But this is not a bad place. Look at your Human and teach him. He can hear you better here than just about anywhere. You are safe here. It will quiet down. You are safe. You are safe. You are safe. Listen to my heart. You are the Queen of all dogs. You are safe.”

The greyhound relaxed, her panic passed. Hope wondered what misery such a thing as a “track” was, that could cause such horrid yellow fear even in the Royalty of dogs. She wagged a worshipful tail at the grey, and even gave a submissive lick, which was of course ignored.

The greyhound was busy telling her Human that she liked this Zack very much, and that she remembered that he was a good Human, and perhaps they should go home now.

(c) 2008 Patience C. Renzulli
all rights reserved

hug your hounds

Novel Excerpt

[Emily Hunt's dog - Hope - has gone missing. Emily's best friend Alabama has talked her into going to a lure trial. Emily's other dogs are Proper (Hope's litter brother), Raine, Thelonious, and Mr. Beans. Alabama's dog is Katie.]

She knew it hadn’t been right to miss the last several lure trials. She knew the dogs needed to get out and run. She knew none of the older crew were getting any younger, and she knew Proper was in his prime. She knew all of that; yet she hadn’t been able to make herself pack her van and go. But Alabama had called and given her “what for” as she would say. “What good is it going to do you, sitting on your big old farm, wishing? Not one bit. In the mean time, you’ve got these dogs who are here, and who count on you. You aren’t doing them or you or Hope or me one bit of good by staring at that computer screen of yours, wishing things were different. It’s not like you, Emily.”

The sun was just a hint behind the woods as she put the dogs in the van. “Wait, Proper! Let your uncle in first. Jump up, Mr. Beans. Now you, Raine. Thelonious, up you go.” She opened the top crate behind the driver’s seat. And by pure force of habit she turned to look for Hope. A surge of electric pain shot through her heart, robbing her of all her air. Proper looked up at her, feeling her sorrow, and he worried. She looked at his deep soul-knowing eyes and smiled. Stroking his ears, she said, “I’m sorry buddy. I’ll get it together. Today is for you. Jump up big guy.” He saw right through her smile to her sorrow, and wagged his bravest wag for her. Dogs don’t waste their time on wishing, but he missed his sister, and he missed his Emily’s happiness more than he would have missed his right front leg if it fell off. So he looked into her and he wagged an extra wag and he smiled at her and then he jumped into his crate in the van, next to his sister’s empty one.

*****************

At the lure trial, at first it was awkward. People either wanted to hug the life out of Emily, or they didn’t know what to say and they avoided her altogether. Some of the huggers then tried to steer their cheerful conversations to anything but Hope. Like maybe Emily had forgotten that her dog was gone and their mentioning Hope’s name would remind her. After getting her dogs all inspected at Roll Call, she was delighted to seek refuge at the van, getting all set up and ready for the day. The dogs were beside themselves. It felt like ten forevers since they had gotten to chase the lure, and they all focused all their energy on their Emily, saying, “Me first, me first, don’t forget me!” Those shining eyes of fun were better than morphine for the pain in Emily’s heart. All the human eyes either looked at her with pity or sympathy, or they avoided hers entirely. But these dogs held her gaze and said, “Good human! Today is the best day of our lives!”
Even Proper had extra fun in his eyes. That part of him, which had been missing for so long, felt whole again. He looked into his Emily’s heart and he said, “We are going to have a great time today. I should go first, I think. Yes, my woman, that would be fine indeed. You can put the jacket on me now.” Emily laughed.

**********************

On the drive home, the dogs were sound asleep. The completely contented sleep that only a good day of hard running brought. Emily chatted about how the dogs had done and Alabama listened and laughed. It was grand to hear her friend chatter on.
“I’m so pleased with Proper. He really had a good day. I guess he was just so glad to be running again, but that was quite a performance he put in during the run off. You’d think the lure operators would have figured out by now that the dog can turn. But you can hear them laying off the button as it’s coming to the corner and you know they think he’s going to blow the turn. I love to hear the ‘zzzzzzz’ as they realize he’s caught them sleeping and he’s going to catch the lure if they don’t punch it. I can’t blame them; he is so agile for his size and speed.”
“He really is,” said Alabama.
“And you’ve got to be proud of Katie! A win and forty points – woohoo! What’s she need now?”
“Eight more skanky points. Lordy be, it’s been long enough coming. Two stinkin’ years. But she did run her little fanny off, didn’t she? I was proud of my Katydid today.”
Katy heard her name, and stretched her toes without really waking up, and let out a contented groan. The two women laughed.
While she was already laughing, Emily said, “Could you believe Thelonious’s second run! Oh my stars, I thought the first one was inventive, but I have no idea what he thought he was chasing the second run. I mean, he was never anywhere in the neighborhood of the lure! Too bad they don’t get points for creativity, he’d be the number one sight hound in the country. You silly old man.”
Emily reached behind her seat as she drove and scratched the old dog’s neck where it laid against the crate. “He gets no less enjoyment from his day. I don’t mind paying the entry fee to see him smile like that. And how about Her Highness Raine? Wasn’t she just on fire? She ran like she was two again. Oh it does my heart good to see those dogs grin at me at the end of their runs.” Emily shook her head, sending clumps of curls flying. “Thank you, Alabama. Thank you from my dogs and from me.”

hug your hounds

Happy times (from the Novel)

[This is when Hope and her litter brother were growing up. Enjoy! I you want to read all of the excerpts from my novel-in-progress, simply click on the "novel excerpt" label at the bottom of this story.]

Hope loved everything about her farm. She loved the smell of the horses. She loved to devil the barn cats, and couldn’t understand why the Woman didn’t see them as Vermin. She loved the sun, oh how she loved the sun. She loved to bake in it in the summer, and to worship its hidden warmth in the fall. She and her brother Proper would hunker down together in a pile of leaves and let that autumn sun reach through and warm their souls. They shared their heat, as was their nature, and took turns sleeping and feigning sleep. She loved the pretending best. Watching through one seemingly closed eye. When a squirrel would carelessly scan and miss them entirely and twitch his evil tempting tail and chatter his insults, she would move nothing; just change the pattern of her breathing. She would feel Proper’s heart race next to her, but he wouldn’t move as much as a whisker. Wait. Wait. The pounding of their two hearts was deafening, pumping oxygen like bullets, getting ready. Wait. She felt Proper shift just a fraction. Wait.

And then the leaves exploded. She would beat her bigger brother, though she saw nothing at all but the idiot squirrel. Got it. And now the Woman was out in the yard, yelling and stumping along and the idiot squirrel was dead and it was hers, but her brother thought it was his, and what was the silly Woman doing? Arrgh, that moment she took her mind off the carcass, Proper got it and took off, and the silly Woman was stumping around the yard after Proper and the idiot dead squirrel, and so was she. She was just inches away from grabbing it out of her brother’s jaws, only he turned just then, well, he learned that trick from her, now didn’t he? And the silly Woman was panting like a bellowing bull, and screaming “Leave it! Drop it!” As if Proper would. And life was so grand.

After Proper chomped down the idiot squirrel’s head, he stopped playing Dodge the Human and allowed the Woman to have the rest of the carcass. She retched and gagged and took the thing by the very tip of its tail and threw it over the fence. Humans were so wasteful. Why disgrace the idiot squirrel by letting the good parts rot? It should be eaten, and rolled in as perfume, and then let the flies get what’s left. She noticed that the Woman was still huffing and was all red and sweaty, so she thought she should see if she were all right. She trotted over, wagging. The Woman took them inside and cared for their wounds in her odd, clumsy way, by putting some cold bubbly liquid out of a bottle on them. This she followed with an ointment, smelling unnatural and medicinal that at least they could lick off. The Woman asked Proper please not to throw up the idiot squirrel’s head on the living room rug. Perfect example of the Human’s lack of understanding. What did she want? If the idiot squirrel’s brain was full of sickness, did she want Proper to absorb the sickness? Humans!

There were lots of days of chasing squirrels. When Hope and Proper went on the walks with the Woman and the elders in the Big Back Fields, they were attached to the Woman so she didn’t get left behind and lost. The Woman would release an elder from the obligation and they would run and tease the rest of the pack. Hope’s sire was especially good at finding deer, fox, rabbits and those vile groundhogs. When they would hear the Sire sound the hunting alarm, they would all try their best to help the Woman run to catch up. Whippets can go from zero to thirty in less time than you could say “OOF” so more often than not, the Woman would end up on her belly, and a couple of them used to get to go off and help the Sire. With the attachments still around their necks and dragging behind them, though no longer in the Woman’s hands, they could not be as helpful as they would like, but they tried. If it was a deer, they would turn the deer to come back to the pack. Usually by then, the Woman was just getting up and assessing her bumps and bruises. The sight of a big old buck, heading right toward them, with their Sire and pack mates on its flagging white tail, would cause the pack to try with all their might to help the Woman run towards the deer, and down she’d go again on her slow, useless Human belly.

The Pack thought that by repeating this scenario on every possible opportunity, the Woman would either learn to run faster, or would relieve them of their obligation to her, at least for the walks. But Humans just don’t learn, and so off they’d go, morning, noon and evening, tethered to the Woman, with only one or occasionally two at a time running free.

Hope loved more than anything when it was her time to run. The Woman was at least smart enough to pair her with the Queen or her Sire. So many lessons to learn! The first time she was let free out back, she was running hell bent for leather, when suddenly pie-yow there was an explosion and Hope was turning head over heels in the hay field. She looked up, once she stopped seeing stars, to see her Sire grinning down at her. He had intentionally crashed into her, sending her ass over tin cups. “Watch out. Respect your elders. Pay attention.” But Hope was very young, and full of run, and finally free of the tethered Woman, and she took off just as fast as her spirit could fly, in big silly looping butt-tucked circles. Another explosion sent her tumbling, and this time when she finally stopped, her Sire had her gently by her throat, his tail wagging and his eyes shining. “Watch out. Respect your elders. Pay attention.” He held her still, on her back for a moment, with his jaws as strong as his character and as gentle as his soul. When he let her up, Hope trotted off, looked around, and carefully started running. But having no desire to be a doggy bowling pin yet again, when she heard her Sire thundering up behind her, she ducked down and hugged the ground. Her Sire jumped clear over her and looked over his shoulder, daring her to run with him. They ran in big circles, grinning around their tongues, and any time her Sire would look at her, she would crouch and wait until he dared her to run with him again.

When she was completely out of breath, she trotted back to the Pack and the Woman, and sides just a-heaving, gladly accepted the Woman’s tether. The Woman carried a squirt bottle of water, which Hope gratefully gulped. Then she strained at her tether as Proper got to run with the Queen. When Hope saw the Queen bearing down on him she barked an excited little warning, but Proper was all about running and then boom it was all over as the Queen sent him sprawling. “Watch out. Respect your elders. Pay attention.” It took four explosions for Proper to learn, but sure enough, he did. It was a lesson that served them all their lives; no matter how fast they were going, they stayed aware of their surroundings. They honed their peripheral senses.

Resolution

I started this blog for one reason: to get discovered by a literary agent. Then I would sign a book deal for my novel in progress, and be a guest on Oprah. Ha!

I met some great new friends, and was delighted to see a bunch of my faithful past readers were here and I started writing like crazy. Oh it felt good. I gave up my custom collar business to give me more time to write. A bunch of people found my book here and bought it, which helped.

In September, on the first week of this blog's existence, it was visited 516 times, with 853 page views. Even though Bill and I probably accounted for at least 500 page views, it was still an exciting start. This week, we had 2336 visits, with 3205 page views. Come on Oprah! The average visit has stayed pretty constant at around two minutes. Visitors have come from sixty-seven countries. Only, India doesn't count, because the fifteen visitors from India averaged two seconds per visit. No, India doesn't count.

Thank you for giving me your most valuable two minutes! I know how crammed every one's day is.

Now, for the resolution. The blog has gotten me writing consistently, but not necessarily on my novel. So. What do you think of my posting more excerpts from the novel here as I go? Just little snippets. Do I run the risk of having my story line stolen? Or boring you all to death? Please tell me what you think, if you have a moment, or if you care. Either way, I do resolve to get at least the first draft of this book finished in 2008. There. I said it. In public.

There are three other excerpts of the novel on this blog. You can start with this one (scroll down to the large writing), the next is here, and then this one.




Here is the newest. The Woman has lost her dog, Hope.


The calls were starting to come in. The Woman and Laura and Gayle had made posters with photos of Hope and a large, legible “REWARD” and the Woman’s phone number and had posted them all over the community. They had hit every veterinarian’s office and shelter for miles. They had gotten permission to speak to postal workers, Fed Ex and UPS drivers and supplied all of them with the posters. They had canvassed every convenience store and gas station, and there wasn’t a telephone pole in the county that wasn’t decorated with Hope’s photo and the words “Reward, no questions asked.” And the phone was ringing.
After a few crank calls, one call made the Woman’s heart leap. ”I’m pretty sure I got your dog,” the man’s voice said on the other end. “It’s white and got a spot on its side, and it looks just like the dog on the poster I saw.”
“I’ll be right there, if you could give me directions to your place?” the Woman practically shouted. On the drive there, she called Laura. “Oh my God, Laura, I think I’ve found her. The guy says she looks just like the photo. But I don’t know how she could have gotten there; it’s clear on the other side of town. It’s got to be every bit of twelve or fifteen miles, and it’s kind of a creepy area.”
“Did they say if she were hurt or anything?” asked Laura.
“No, he didn’t say, and I didn’t think to ask. She’s got to be ok. I just can’t wait to hold her in my arms. Hello? Laura? Hello? Damn!” Her cell phone was dead as a smelt. She reached to plug it in to the charger, only to realize that she had left the charger in her husband’s car. Damn and damn.
She saw a rusty mailbox with the number on her directions and pulled into the lane, winding into some scraggly woods, which hid the house. As she rounded a corner in the pocked drive she saw that hiding the house was a good thing. It was a mess. Broken bikes and trash and a rusted tattered swing set decorated the front. The house itself was cinder block, painted white or gray. It was so covered in black and green mildew, she couldn’t tell what color it had once been. There were bushes and landscape plants, but they were obliterated by tall weeds. She fought off a big wave of fear; she would get her dog. She clutched her purse tightly under her arm, picturing the $500 cash reward in her wallet. She wished her cell phone worked.
She looked around for any glimpse of Little Hope, but instead saw a man coming out of the house. A large man. Good God, the guy was a whole mountain. He had to be six foot five, and had a belly that belligerently fought any attempts to cover it, be it by pants or shirt. Suspenders kept the belly from pushing the pants clear down around his knees, but they had to go the long way around, making them look like parentheses.
As the Woman walked from her car to the door, that blimp of a belly seemed to be its own life form. She kept her eyes focused up on the huge man’s eyes, and said, “Hi. You have my dog?”
The tall man forced a smile, but it was evident that smiling politely was not a part of his normal activities of daily living. His cheek muscles twitched with effort. “I’m sure it is. It looks just like that picture. I don’t want to, uh. I mean… I mean wasn’t there a mention of a reward?” The smile wasn’t even a memory when his face hardened. His eyes didn’t contain a speck of kindness and the woman couldn’t wait to get her dog and get out of there. As if to confirm her need to turn away, the man cleared his throat and spit a glob of something that made the woman suppress a gag.
“Yes, I have the reward, but please let me see my dog. I can’t thank you enough. I’ve been so worried. I can’t begin to imagine how she got so far from home. Where is she? I don’t see or hear any dogs at all?”
“I put it in the shed so it wouldn’t get lost again.”
“Oh, that was a good idea. May we go get her?” If the woman had to stand there for another minute talking to this man, she thought she was going to have to spit a glob of something herself.
She followed him around a footpath to the back of the house. She was afraid. She realized that she had placed herself in a ridiculously vulnerable position. She was on a remote property, with a strange man who could sit on her and crush her to death, she had $500 in her purse, and she hadn’t told a living soul where she was headed. She wondered what the hell was wrong with her, and she wondered if this guy had Hope. Certainly if Hope were here, she’d be screaming ah-woos at the sound of the woman’s voice, and there was no sound at all, other than the distant drone of traffic from the Interstate.
“Oh, my husband is coming here, too,” she lied. “He’s probably a couple of minutes behind me.” It sounded just as lame to her as she figured it did to the man-mountain. She saw a shed, outhouse width, but three times deeper, attached to the back of the house. It was weather beaten, and the bottom boards were green/gray with slime. The woman felt her fear morphing into anger and she wanted to get her Little Hope out of there. But she had a bad feeling about the whole deal. Bad.
The large man fiddled with a key in the padlock and then opened the door. He moved his bulk out of the way and grunted, pointing the woman towards the back of the shed. She peered in, letting her eyes adjust and called softly, the universal call of a loving breeder, “Pup, pup, pup!” Even her oldest could not resist that high happy invitation, imprinted as their earliest memory of food, affection, and fun. In the very back of the shed, curled in a corner, looking with wary eyes was a small terrier mix. A male.
“This isn’t my dog. This isn’t even close to my dog. It’s a male and it’s not a whippet.”
“Are you sure? It’s white with brown patches. It looks like your dog to me.”
“It’s a male. I’m missing a female.” She turned to the miserable creature in the corner. “Come here, buddy. It’s OK.” She threw him a little biscuit, which he sniffed and then quietly ate. “Come on, come here. You’re alright, come get another.” The dog crept over, its tail low and it’s body language conveying nothing but fear and submission. She held out another biscuit and he took it gently from her hand. She scratched the side of his neck and then got a hold of his collar.
“He’s got tags. His owner’s phone number is right here!” What a jerk, she thought. A quick look at the little guy convinced her that he was someone’s loved pet. His nails were trimmed, he was in great weight, and his coat, though superficially dirty, was in excellent condition. She was gently stroking him during this assessment and the dog was wagging his docked tail faster, and squirming with delight, pressing his body into her secure arms.
“I need to call his owners,” she said, immediately blushing with her mistake. She did not want this man to know that her cell phone was caput. “Let me put him in my van.”
“Hold on there. Just hold on. Here’s what I think. I think this is your dog. I think you are welching on the reward. You offered a reward, and I have your dog and you aren’t going nowhere with this damn dog until I get the reward.” The man’s eyes looked snaky; no mammalian feeling, just flicking for prey. He absently grabbed at his waistband and futilely tugged at it.
In a fit of absolute inappropriateness, the woman fought an overwhelming urge to giggle. She was reminded of an old Saturday Night Live skit. Chris Farley played a failed motivational speaker, a derisory loser who was constantly hiking up his pants. The effect was to diffuse her fear, and she realized she could outrun this guy with her legs tied together if need be.
“Come over to my van. Let me show you something.”
At her van, she put the little dog in a crate, giving him another biscuit, and grabbed one of her “lost” posters. She showed it to the man.
“See here? Female. See that dog? Male. See this picture? Long legs, pointy nose, stripy spot on the left side of the body, long skinny tail. See that dog? His tail is cut off. This is not my dog. OK?”
The man’s face was purple with anger and he made a rumbling noise.
“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take this dog and I’ll get him back to his family. I have your name and phone number and I will strongly suggest that the family thank you for keeping him safe. But, this isn’t your dog and it isn’t my dog and I need to get him home.”
The man said, “Yeah, whatever. Great.” He hefted his bulk back into his house without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
The woman called out, “So nice to meet you, Creephead. Thanks for your help.”

A Page From the Novel

I have posted two other excerpts - isn't that just the strangest looking word - from the novel in progress. One is at the bottom of this page and the other is here.

The man let the broken screen door slam behind him, making the boy look up from his homework with concern. He could see the temper rising off his father like dust from old tires on a dry dirt road.

“You git off your lazy butt and git out to that shed and you clean every cage. I’m so tired of your worthless ass sittin’ here doing nothin’. You’re old enough to start earnin’ your keep. Just ‘cause you go to that fancy school and git on computers and read your books, you act like you know everything. Let’s see how damn smart you are after you do some real work. Go on. I’m sick and tired of lookin’ at you. I am so damn tired to my bones.”

The boy looked into his father’s eyes and said, “Yessir” as he closed his math book, keeping his place with his homework page. His heart fairly leaped out of his chest. He couldn’t believe this explosion of good luck. Any time he was caught anywhere near the dogs he got a whipping from his father. He got a cursing for making the dogs “soft”. “They ain’t pets,” the man would spit. “They’re investments. They’re dinner and electric bills and the goddam roof over our heads. You go out there spoiling them and they don’t have no puppies and I don’t have no way to pay the mortgage, and we’re on the street.”

He had no earthly idea what had caused this abrupt turnaround on his father’s part, but he was thrilled at the notion of being sent out to take care of the dogs. He had been sneaking out to the shed all his life, and here he was following an order to do what he loved most. He walked the rutted path through the desolate back yard quickly, quietly praying that he wouldn’t hear the screen door slam again with his father’s mind changing faster than the whip hitting his bare butt.

By habit, he slid through the smallest possible crack in the old shed doors. The odor smacked him silly, as it always did, but this time he could do something about it. He turned back and opened the door, hanging heavily askew on its rusty hinges. Some of the stink went out and some light came in. He had never dared take the time to count before, but now he quickly counted cages and dogs. Ten cages on the bottom back row, each with three to five dogs. Five on each bottom side row, mostly with three dogs. Standing alone in the center of the shed were stacks of three larger cages, three tall, each with a bitch nursing a litter of puppies. His eyes returned to the back of the shed. Stacked on the bottom row was another row of twelve crates, though these held two to three dogs each. Six more were stacked on each side row, with three perched on the top of those. And on the top of the back cages were five small rusted cages, each containing a male dog.

There were one hundred and five dogs in that shed, not counting the nine litters of puppies.

The boy was overwhelmed for a moment. He couldn’t believe there were that many dogs and he just didn’t know where he would start.

Please! I’m so thirsty. We’re hungry! Please! Water! Pain. Oh, Boy, please help us.

The voices were so loud in his heart, in his head, for just a moment he covered his ears.

"You know what to do. You are here and you know and some of us are dying."

That one clear voice gave him courage and jolted him out of his shock. He nodded at the little whippet, his “Angel” and he got to work. First the water buckets. He opened cages and grabbed buckets as fast as he could. He scrubbed the buckets in the work sink, using burning hot water and bleach and an old scrub brush he found in a corner. He filled them with fresh cold clean water and put them back in the cages. And he moved to the next row.


After all the dogs had fresh water, he started to work on the food bowls. Some were crusted with old food full of maggots, and the boy wretched every so often. But he shook his head and breathed through his mouth and kept on. He washed all of them out first, scrubbing until his fingers started to crack and bleed, oblivious. He was frantically aware of how fast the time was passing. When he looked in the food bin, the kibble was moldy, and the boy swore under his breath. The dogs, who were finding their voices and a little strength and a tiny feeling of hope after drinking the fresh water started barking, crying, screaming for food. It was contagious.

“Quiet! ”shouted the boy. “He’s going to come out here. Please, please try to be quiet. I am going as fast as I can.”

The barks and screams turned to shuddering whines. The boy ran out to his father’s truck and found a new bag of kibble in the back. He dragged it back to the shed, though it practically outweighed him, tore it open and started filling the beat up but clean bowls. He loaded as many bowls as he could carry and went from cage to cage. Some of the cages were so cramped with dogs that he couldn’t figure out where to put the bowl. Some of the dogs couldn’t stand, didn’t even try. Some of them looked away from the bowl.

This upset the boy terribly. But he put a food bowl in every single cage. Then he went back to the dogs who weren’t even trying to eat. He added a little water to the kibble to see if that would help. It did, in a few cases. He held some kibble in his hand for some of the weaker dogs, and they took a bit, to be polite.

He went to the whippet’s cage. She had emptied her water bucket. He raced to the utility sink and filled it again, physically hurting from knowing how little time remained for him to be out there. He put her water bucket back in the cage. She tried to wag for him. This was a dear soul, she knew. The boy gently stroked the top of the little dog’s head.

“You gotta eat, girl. You’re nothing but skin and bones and sores. Oh, man, look at those sores. Here - try just a bite of food.”

The dog ate some kibble and her eyes never left his. She drank in his kindness with even more desperation than she had the water. Her infected teeth caused her just amazing pain with every chew, but she could taste the boy’s joy with each bite, so she took bite after stabbing bite.

“I knew you could eat something,” the boy said with a grin. The pinched face of the dog and the thin face of the boy were only inches apart. For a moment, oblivious of the stench, the sores, and the filth, the boy leaned his forehead against the dog’s forehead. Her heart pounded with such abandon, she felt her ribs could no longer hold the thing. Surely it would escape her broken body and run some butt tucked zoomies, and land right in the boy’s chest. Her sunken eyes widened and she managed some wags which were so successful that her tail actually thumped the side of her cage. The boy felt his throat tighten and his eyes stung with desperate tears, and he kissed the little bony dog.

“I got to go. I’ll come back. I’ll make you get well.” He looked at all the other eyes. “I’ll try and I’ll make it ok for all of you. I sure don’t know how, but I will.”

He kicked the dirt in a rage of exhausted frustration as he crossed back to the house. What could he do? He was sure that if he only had a mother, there would not be a hundred starving dogs in a shed behind his house. He stopped with his hand on the screen door. Other boys had mothers. Other boys had dogs that played ball and slept on their beds. Other boys had fathers that came to school programs and put their arms over their sons' shoulders and beamed with pride. Other boys.

The boy wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve and crept by the snoring form of the man, his father. He quietly took his math book to bed, but he fell asleep before his homework was finished. He ached. In his heart, in his bones. Too much for a boy. He dreamed of a soft hand on his cheek and he and the little whippet were running and he heard a lady laughing.

copyright Patience C Renzulli, all rights reserved

Another Excerpt from the Novel

“Little Hope, where are you? Hopie? LITTLE Miss HOPE! Where the heck are you? Come on, we’re waiting for dinner.”
The Woman was starting to get a bit annoyed.
“She must be hoarding a dead squirrel in the yard. She knows if I see it I’ll take it away. I don’t have time for this,” she moaned to the rest of the Pack.
She pushed the full dinner bowls to the very back of the counter and pointed at Proper and said, “Leave it,” in her most businesslike voice, and went back into the yard.
“Little Hope, dinner! Dinner dogs, come on, Hope. Hope?”
Just a splinter of worry crept around the corner of her consciousness. Where was the dog? She was always the first one when the food dishes came out, not the last. Maybe her husband had inadvertently closed Hope in the bedroom. Relieved at that notion, she ran upstairs.
“Little Hope did you get locked in here?” But as soon as she opened the door she knew that she was talking to an empty room. Now the first feeling of real fear closed around the woman’s throat. Where the hell was her dog?
She threw every door in the house open, searching in every closet, both bathrooms, and she even went down in the basement, perfectly aware of the futility of it all, but compelled to look. She looked out in the yard again, pleading “Please, Little Hope! Where are you?” She didn’t realize that she had started to cry but her face was soaked.

Her husband heard the panic in her voice. “Maybe she got out and is hunting out back. Did you look in the bedroom? Maybe she got shut in the bedroom by mistake.”
“I’ve looked in the bedroom, in the basement, in the yard a hundred times. I tell you she’s not there. Little Hope!” she yelled. “I’ll go look again.” She thought of the definition of insanity: trying the same behavior and expecting different results. This was nuts. Where was her little dog? She went back inside and threw leads on the rest of her confused dogs, who were in collective wonderment as to what the heck happened to the whole dinner process. The Human seemed to have totally lost her mind, and now, instead of giving them their bowls of food, had decided to go for a walk. The dogs were fine with that, but Buddy, the lab, thought a little reminding was in order.
“Woof,” he said, eyes smiling counterward. “You forgot our supper.”
“Buddy, come on. Get over here now. We’ve got to find Hope.”
The old lab, for the umpteenth million time, forgave the Human and wagged slowly over to her, accepting his leash.
The dogs all felt the woman’s alarm, and noticed that she was searching with her blind eyes for something. They heard her call the little one’s name over and over. Proper [Hope's litter brother] felt lost. His Human’s fright and his own loneliness were making him feel too heavy, as though he were walking in a deeply plowed field of uneven, loose earth. He was losing his footing.
They walked the entire two mile loop, down the tractor trail along the cornfield, left along the woods to the wheat field, through the woods to emerge at the soybean field, and up the hill that brought them back to the cornfield and home. The woman calling for her young dog, at times through tears, other times with an edge of anger, but calling, calling, calling. The woods filled with the Woman’s voice crying “Hope. Little Hope! Come here Hope. Where are you, Little Hope? Here Hope. Oh, Little Hope please come here.” And finally, surrounded by her dogs and her worst fears, the Woman sat on a flat field rock and heard a sound bleed from her soul. A long, loud keening sound as she knew she had lost her dog, and the rest of the pack howled her sadness to the sky.

copyright Patience C. Renzulli

I will never have a blog.

Never. Why would I give away my writing for free? Of course I give it away in the local NPR commentaries that I write and record for the awesome WKMS. And I have given it away on the dog lists and groups for years on a daily basis. And I post stories on my store's website. (In fairness, it has been a couple of years since I put a new story there.) But blog? No way. No sirreee. It is so cliche' right now. Everyone has a blog. Blog, blog, blog: it's the new blah, blah, blah.

Mary says, "You really need to have a blog." Nah, not me. Jeannie asks, "Why don't you have a blog?" I'm so above blogging. Rhonda gently nudges, "Have you considered a blog?" I have, and I've soundly rejected the notion. Then husband Bill creates a blog. Well, that makes sense; he's kept a journal for years, and he is wise and quietly spiritual and funny. But I've never kept a diary for more than a hopeful week of Pollyanna enthusiasm, and I'm drowning in the middle of a novel. (Writing one, not reading one.) And besides, who do I think I am?

So stepdaughter Amy calls this morning. Seems there's an article in the Chicago papers about a new blog that created so much buzz that literary agents are knocking down the blogger's door. Literary agents? Oh I had heard about bloggers being discovered, but Amy made this sound so possible. She said wonderful flattering things about my writing, and when she heard my standard arguments, she smilingly ignored them all. I could hear the tone in her sweet voice, which subtly screamed, "Get with the program! Hellooooo? Just how stuck in the last decade are you?" I still don't get it because I don't see how people find blogs. I spent the whole morning, OK, an hour, OK, at least 3 minutes doing a search for "dog blog" and I got a whole bunch of nothing.

But I trust my friends and relations, so Mary, Jeannie, Rhonda, and Amy - this blog's for you.

Who cares???

I live in western Kentucky in an Arts Community with my husband and my nine dogs. Whippets. They look like small greyhounds, but aren't the tiny Italian Greyhounds. My husband is. Italian, I mean. We didn't always live here, but have since June of 2002. My husband moved to this town, Paducah, for the Artist Relocation Program. I moved here because I love my husband. He is a gifted artist. I am enormously talented and extremely well versed at picking up dog poop.

Today, when I was walking the dogs, which I do in shifts, the workers were already on the neighbors' house putting on a new roof. I take the two oldest dogs, thirteen and a half year old Giacomino and twelve and a half year old Maria only around one block because more than that would do them in. It's only seven-something and as I'm waving my pathetic good mornings to the roofers who just think I'm weird because they've seen me walking all these skinny dogs for hours every morning, I see Giacomino start to hunch.

Oh please don't poop right here. Why do the dogs choose to poop when I would least like them to? The rough hewn shirtless roofers are finally starting to offer half-hearted, begrudging waves back at me. And now Giacomino is going to poop right here and the roofers will be grossed out, and I don't know why but I care. The bad poop timing never fails. The dogs can be all de-pooped, but let the president of the bank be walking on the same sidewalk and have him stop to offer pleasant salutations and at least dog one will get a sudden urge to purge. And when the Mayor and his beautiful wife drive by, and stop to chat - that guarantees multiple simultaneous poopage. That's a conversation killer, you betcha. Three pooping canines and my whipping out baggies to scoop it up and carry it along? Yup, any non-dog-owner is out of there.

So I gently drag and cajole the evacuating Giacomino behind the next parked car, and we make it in time. Maybe it's going to be a good day. Maybe it's a good sign for my infant blog, I don't know, but we didn't gross out the roofers.

So. Now. Wasn't I right? Who wants to read a blog about dog poop? I suppose I might post some exerpts from my novel from time to time if there's any interest. Here's a paragraph:

She was lying in the sun next to her litter-brother Proper. They were lying in the grass next to the picket fence. Kind of a cliché that picket fence, but they couldn’t help it. And anyway, it fit. This was home – safe, comfortable, familiar. Everything a picket fence stood for. Home. The Woman was talking to someone over the fence. Their voices made a buzz that harmonized nicely with the summer bees and the background traffic from the Interstate. You had to listen for the traffic noise to notice it, otherwise it was just there, five miles or so away, just in the trunk of your consciousness, humming Interstate traffic background music. Proper stretched and curled his toes to deepen his appreciation of the lazy sun. She looked at the Woman, blabbing away with the person on the other side of the picket fence. She wondered if it was worth her energy to figure out what they were talking about. Listened for a moment, but didn’t hear the good words: “dinner”, "car”, ”walk”, ”Jake”, ”cookies”, or ”OK”, so she lay her head back down in the grass, worshipped the Sun God, closed her eyes and felt the soothing medicine of peace creep over her. She was running. Making a path through the wheat, which felt like whips beating, “faster, faster, go faster” and then disappearing into the rows of corn, the running lanes, cool and dark. Little cries of running joy crowding into her breathing in time with her strides. Run. For the sheer joy of feeling every muscle reaching to its absolute capacity. Fast oh my God she was going so fast. The corn stalks passing in a blur of insignificance. Go go go go there was nothing faster in this world. She was a heat-seeking missile, soaking up her speed. Chasing what? The illusion of some prey? Just chasing; that was for sure, not being chased. For the running was the joy. No fear. Just symmetry of perfect athleticism and grace and rhythm. Run. The cornfield ended abruptly and she dreamed she was back in the sun. Back with Proper in the grass by the picket fence. She felt that glory of pure physical exhaustion. She felt her heart beating so hard that it must be a foot in diameter. Felt her breathing so deep that it hurt in a great way. She felt it all, as she felt the comfort of her brother’s nearness and the warmth of the sun and the thirst. The good, honest thirst from the long run. And she felt the heat from her exertion. She thought she better find a shaded spot with a cooling breeze, where she could still see Proper. Still hear the Woman in the background buzz. She opened her eyes.

So that's it. And that's that. Lord help me, I started a blog.