Adventures of Sasha’s Gang--Chapter 5
Adventures of Sasha's Gang
“I hear brain.” Her declaration startled me, throttling back my breathing.
“I think she just said that she can hear my thoughts.” I mused quietly, eyes squinted as I tried to better focus, maintaining my gentle hold on her head.
“Dan?” She seldom called me that unless it was time for a serious heart-to-heart--which I wasn’t terribly proficient at—on a good day maybe scoring a D+.
“Yes Hon?”
She paused. “Are we going to feed these hounds at all tonight?” She asked with RN punctuality; I had totally forgotten, having eclipsed their feeding time by at least a few hours. Or maybe the quake had mysteriously satiated their hunger pangs. But to the contrary, maybe they heard spouse using the word feed, one of the essential bi-species keywords in canine lexicon, their drooling response Pavlovian in nature. I suspect dog DNA may come standard with it. And though we strive to feed dogs separately at Sasha’s, that’s not possible this fractured night.
“My bad,” I confessed. “In all the insanity…slipped my mind.” I turned back to our ruffled bedstead of wagging tails and with a calm monotone voice, explained to both the pups and spouse how supper was being served. “Better than the Edmunds Fitzgerald.” I jested. “I can feed ya’ all but it’s gonna be a group grope!”
And with that I disengaged from Turquoise and raced the chill to the kitchen where I rapidly, and without elegance, poured half a 40-pound bag of salmon/rice dog food into half a dozen silver feed bowls and then hurriedly topped off their water bowls as well. A couple of the dogs had followed me to the dog kitchen and were grazing as I rushed back to our makeshift boudoir where I tunneled into our flannel igloo. The temperature had dropped like flying turkeys (“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly". WKRP).
Most of the dogs had death-raced to the kitchen once they heard the telltale kittle-ballast pinging the feed bowls. Once I was ensconced back in my blankets, spouse having kept my space warm, I saw that three remained. Turquoise, Mama Cass and Socrates apparently had a greater appetite for heat and sleep than they did for food at the moment.
First-cousin to a cuddly bear cub, Socrates approaches life much like a self-contained motorhome. Very compact, self sufficient and subtly arrogant but more for the purpose of being left alone rather than feigning superiority. A coal-black Chow Chow, Socrates is soft as cotton but her first half year of life was simply a brazen act of survival in a shelter scarce on both protection and love. Hence, her defensive dance with life. She ignores most folks and dogs, but if she chooses to become your friend (and it will be her choice), she is that for life. As often is the case, Socrates sequesters herself alone on the far side of our California King foam mattress and is contently dozing.
Mama Cass fidgets a bit, maintaining her sizable homestead in the middle of the foam urine bed. Amongst the brightest of Sasha’s dogs--and with the hovering and inquisitive mind of a loving mother--she appears content to quietly contemplate the bizarre events of this day.
Usually headed home with her owners most evenings after daycare, Mama will pillow down tonight at Sasha’s since the roads are blackened by missing stoplights and overrun by emergency vehicles--an absolute circus outside.
It seemed odd, myriad helicopters overhead. But why? There are no lights anywhere, but for a tepid sliver of moon? So there’s nothing to see. It’s nighttime. When people and pups snooze. Save the avionic fuel.
“You doing okay?” Spouse asks, her concern cornered by the flickering candlelight. “It’s all so, so, uh…”. Words were elusive.
“Nuts,” is the only noun-adjective that came to my mind.
Then of course there’s enchantress Turquoise. Still fluffed and snoozing between spouse and myself. From my brief experience, appears the magic—or whatever it is—is only activated when I touch her head with my hand. She is lying horizontal to my leg and there’s no similar effect. While spouse’s touch was compassionate, it was not imbued with the magic. No sedatives sprinting up her arms. No voices singing background.
“Anything I can do?” Spouse asks, planting a kiss on the tip of my nose.
“As you always do,” I teased. “Sexualize me.”
“And what’s your second…more plausible wish?” She smiled as the other dogs--Hoss, Mark Spitz, Eisenhower and Bambi—slowly rejoined our pig pile after chowing down. “Because that ain’t happening…at least not tonight, poopsie.” That was the gospel I already knew, but still worth the ask. It’s called marriage.
And then it struck! At first I reckoned it was yet another tremor, but then realized what I was feeling instead was another Turquoise moment. The narcotic buzz of my arm as my hand unknowingly settled upon her furry crown and the subtle white noise. But the room wasn’t trembling.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. Spouse sensed my change in attitude, my body soft as summer butter.
“Again?” she asked. I just quietly nodded, words useless as urinals in the pantry.
“I am friend.” Turquoise’s voice was radiant and translucent, crocheted from angel wings. Her neon eyes cast a bluish tint across her adoring face. “I’m for to wake.”
“She’s here for to wake…whatever that means,” I whispered.
“To better your world to know,” she added.
“Knowing our world better…I think.”
Spouse didn’t so much roll her eyes as simply blinked them repeatedly, as if lost in the forest. Meanwhile the dogs focused on me, seven pairs of blood-shot alabaster eyeballs punctuating the darkness like falling stars. Studying my every move.
“We finally talk.” It’s not Turquoise’s voice. Rougher around the edges like a newly dug grave, multiple octaves lower, yet definitely female. My sixth sense told me I was listening to Mama Cass who apparently intercepted my thoughts like an overzealous Richard Sherman, Seahawks defender and legend.
Again, rapid as AI, she spoke as if sprinting seconds ahead of her thinking. “The one who crosses the water carries this blessing.”
Then a vulgar rip of the air, as one of the dogs thunder-farted, even penetrating the inhibiting muffler of blankets. But its odiferous nature made a prison break and the escapees immediately fill the room.
“What the he..” spouse sputtered waving away the air in front of her face.
“Hoss,” Mama Cass scolded. “Really?”
“It’s Hoss,” I draw closer to spouse, attempting to divert the nefarious jet stream.
“Not say it coming,” Hoss, the Great Pyrenees, spoke. His glimmering white coat and well-nourished girth (morning treat is a hard-boiled egg that seasons his flatulence as well) resembles a polar bear. Enormous, relatively slow, and a bit of a bully. Instead of dog fights, he is more of a Suma wrestler using his cumbersome size to his advantage. Seldom drawing blood and instead leaving bruises. But usually no bad feelings.
There is little time or credibility to explain how I know the name of the canine-skunk. Or any of the other speakers in my head. It just seems to come naturally to me. In 17th century Salem I would have likely been burnt at the stake. Another reason for remaining mute.
“A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass,” Socrates provides her scatological philosophy on the matter before bowing her head again in sleep.
“True dat,” Mama concurs. “But please. No more happy farts.”
“That was a happy fart,” I whisper in spouse’s ear.
“Don’t smell happy,” spouse casts doubt my direction.
I’ve already decided I’m unable to subtitle the wisdom and parables of Sasha’s gang in real time, so my best will be to provide periodic summations to my wife. That’ll have to do. I feel as if I’ve landed in Nigeria but only speak Icelandic. Like the Beatle’s Magical Mystery tour! An uncontrolled, spontaneous, and often absurd, trip.
Mama speaks again. “We have all hoped for this time.”
Before I could ask why, she answered: “For many days we watch. We worry. We know you struggle.”
This slightly irritates me. Everyone struggles from time to time I wanted to argue. But before I did she retorted: “You are our friend.” She looked at me compassionately with her large brown eyes. They might have even watered slightly. “When you struggle. We struggle. We talk”.
All of a sudden, this feels like a referendum on me… …(to be continued)
Subscribe for FREE email updates on the ongoing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang: https://store.sashaspr.com/blogs/news)