A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

by C.A. Fletcher

Of all the animals that travelled the long road through the ages with us, dogs always walked closest.

If we’re not loyal to the things we love, what’s the point? That’s like not having a memory. That’s when we stop being human.

Never trust someone who tells good stories, not until you know why they’re doing it.

You can fall out of your own safe life that quickly, and nothing you thought you knew will ever be the same again.

And doing what I have done is how I ended up here. Alone. No one to talk to but a photograph of a long dead boy with his dog and his sister. Nothing to do but write this down for people who will never read it. Solitude is its own kind of madness. Like hope itself.

Forgetting is a kind of betrayal, even if it’s what happens to all grief. Time wears everything smoother as it grinds past, I suppose.

I guess no one’s the monster in their own story. Monsters are just a matter of perspective.

Remembering dreams is like picking up small jellyfish—they slip through your fingers—and you never know if it’s a dream you had or if you added to the dream in the remembering. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re remembering a dream at all, or just a dream about remembering a dream. And if that doesn’t make sense, well, neither do dreams.

A brain can hold anything, from giant things, like distant stars and planets, to tiny things we can’t see, like germs. A brain can even hold things that aren’t and never were, like hobbits. A brain can hold the whole universe, a fist just holds what little it can grab. Or hits what it can’t.

Ends happen fast, and often arrive before you’ve been warned they’re coming.