Round Robin Story Debate Rd. 1, Pt. 2

That night was black, as usual. Thank god that I don't have to watch the horrors that usually accompany my dreams. I had the vauge, drunken sense before I went to bed that night that my dreams, if I had any, would prominantly feature my dad. Which would not help the strange stew of emotions gurgling in my stomach, along with the somewhat copius amounts of alcohol.The first thing that came to my mind the next day was of those relating to the inexorable fact that I had had acquired a hangover. Head hurts. Light bright. Want to vomit. Stuff like that. So, despite my deep, entrenced desire to wrap myself tighter in my bed's warm, worn downy covers, I forced myself to get out of bed and walk the chilling path to the kitchen for some headache relief. Shuffling down the hall into the kitchen, I am met by the inglorious bright white light of mid-morning winter. Ugh. I frown and bear it though, and find the ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. As I'm taking one, Mom just so happens to come down. She doesn't look like she had any sleep last night. Her eyes are crimson. She looks up, and I know she's half-expecting dad to still be there, but instead finds me. She doesn't smile. I swallow the ibuprofen and say "hey" to her. She nods her greeting. There's an awkward silence as she starts to make her coffee and I start to head back to my room. "Can you please get the newspaper?" Her request comes softly, and competely out of the blue. I look at her incredulously. I say with my eyes, "Do I look in any fit shape to get the f****** newspaper?" She gives me Bambi eyes. "It's just a small thing to do," she says. Really? If SHE wanted the newspaper so badly, then why didn't SHE go out into the effing snow and get HER effing newspaper? But I relent, ungraciously, and put on a fairly warm robe and waded into the snow. The newspaper was fairly far down in our driveway. I showed my disapproval on my face as I walked down the insufferably cold driveway. Everything was wet with snow. There wan't a sun overhead, but sheer white clouds overhead. Everything was pretty, and everybody would soon be welcoming the snow with the warmth and cheer of the goddamned holiday that was coming up. The world would move on, but I wouldn't. Neither would mom. Bryant might, but he was the perfect one. Tom surely didn't care; he had other things to worry about. At the very end of the driveway, I found the newspaper almost in an unfit condition to be read. I picked it up anyway. When I raised myself from the bent-over position that I was in, I spotted something. A dog. A Newfoundland, to be exact. It was big and pitch-black like any Newfoundland should, but it seemed thin. It was in the McDonald's yard, our direct neighbor to the left. They'd probably either shoo him away eventually or not care either way. The dog itself was looking at me intently. Probably a stray that would eventually be run over by a car sometime soon. Inside, I let mom have her fairly wet newspaper. She had her coffee in both of her hands, and was staring out of the window as though a great ship from the 1870's was out there. She said to put the newspaper on the table before asking me, "Who do you think owns the dog that's out there?" "What dog?" "The dog in Nancy's yard." [She was referring to Nancy McDonald] "I saw you look at it." "Oh, that one," as though there was a swarm of dogs outside our front door, "Probably a stray." "Probably, but it looks too tame and too well-kept." "It's thin." "It's a little bit thin, yes." "What should we do with it?" "Take it to the shelter, see if anybody has lost their dog recently." That was the same thing that I was thinking. But I didn't care, and went back upstairs. *** Dad's funeral was the most somber affair that I remember going to. Maybe because he was the most somber person I have ever met. Grandma Sophie was prim and proper, and her funeral reflected that, but her funeral wasn't as somber as dad's. Tom did the service, and talked about how we should take dad as a role model, and finish what he started or something like that, his voice wasn't happy or anything other than depressed. I had a hard time paying attention to what he was saying, maybe because I was a little drunk. I re-met a lot of distant friends and family that I would probably only see again at weddings or other funerals. I didn't care for any of them. The food afterwards had as little energy and was as depressed as Tom had been during the service. There wasn't any booze. I made uninteresting smalltalk with some distant relatives, who commented about how tall I had gotten. When we arrived home, we were greeted by the Newfoundland by our door. The dog, as we found out in the coming days, was spectral. It couldn't be successfully corralled by anyone, not even animal control when we called them. It remained around the house, watching intently with it's slightly curious stare. When we would try to look for it, it didn't appear. When we were hoping to avoid it, it was there. I hated the thing. Maybe because it reminded me of dad.