grin of drastic love.
was dry, despite the wet air. He
I was sitting in the vet’s waiting
was lying on daddy’s chair. Daddy
room with Luscious curled on my
was passed out, still clean, in his
lap. I ignored the scratched-up
bed. The water I gave to Luscious
yellow tiles on the floor to focus
was in a bile-tinted puddle in the
on the speckled, off-white ones. I
kitchen where he orally expelled it
closed my eyes with speckled off-
immediately after lapping it up for
white in my mind and thought
what seemed like an entire child
about daddy and how I could save
hood, in dog years.
him. I thought about moving in
I looked at Luscious and began
with him and instantly pictured
to cry. I began to apologize and
yellow water infiltrated by a hot
cry and Luscious shut his eyes to
red. Hold on, Caleb, quiet down and
drown me out. That’s when the
you can watch all of what the colors
gun went off and I saw for the
are when we make them together.
last time the stowaway from my
I walked out of the office and
cottage grinning at me. Luscious
into the muck of an increasingly
was fur and blood now, the head of
humid summer day. I opened my
a used mop awaiting replacement.
eyes and the welled-up tears fell
My cottage is warm and I am
out of them.
warmer in my paint bath in the room
Luscious didn’t feel okay after
with yellow walls. I didn’t go to see
the vet’s waiting room visit. His
daddy this weekend. Wouldn’t you
breathing was off and his slit eyes
know it? He came to see me.
were caked in something hard,
I am looking at daddy now,
crystallized and yellow. His nose
slumped against a wall, the one
71 | NOVUS | ISSUE ONE