Out today, in both Kindle and print editions of the British magazine Morpheus Tales, my weird-fiction semi-autobiographical short piece, “Good Dogs”.
Semi-autobiographical because almost everything in “Good Dogs” is true. Roscoe and Jazz were real dogs. The best dogs. Sure, there will be other dogs, and they will be good dogs, but few of them will rise to that place along Roscoe and Jazz. And yes, they were. Roscoe’s been gone four years, Jazz three.
The people in the story are real, or at least are based on real people. The conversations in the story happened at one time or another, in one form or another. Mostly at a Christmas party, I think. Or it was a graduation party. It may have been both, at the same time.
“Five weeks” is a significant period of time for me too, diagnosis to end.
And the real Roscoe found his end much the same way as it is in the story. He knew it was not the end, but the very end. He did what he could to spare the family the heartache. But we knew what happened, why. It was the wrong side of November and he was too old.
Still, he did what he could.
Because he wasn’t a good dog, he was the best dog.
How cool. I scarfed up a Kindle copy. Looking forward to reading your piece. How can you go wrong with dogs?