Rise and Shine

Published on by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

On Saturday morning, Marvin was shopping online for some new clothes. Those socks look nice, he thought, and that shirt will look cool with my new jacket. Then a wave of fatigue hit him and he leaned back in his chair. He felt like the website was leading him around like a cow by its nose ring. Buy these socks. “Buy this shirt. It’ll look good with the jacket you bought yesterday.” It was all so performative, like a costume for a play. But he wasn’t an actor going on stage, just a dude going to his 9 to 5. None of it was him. He felt empty, like a poser feigning being ‘Marvin’.

He emptied the shopping cart and turned off his computer, then went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup and added some cream. As he watched the cream swirl around the spoon he stirred, an epiphany hit him. Everything in his life, from this morning coffee in front of him, to the toothpaste he used at night before bed, was driven by seeking dopamine. Bright smile, happy face, meant hot girlfriend. Dopamine. Was there anything that he did that didn’t involve it? He wondered about his friendships. Were those driven by it too? How could they not be? He thought. He called the ones who made him happy, dopamine, and dodged the ones who didn’t, which led to relief, a sort of backhanded dopamine.

He took a big sip of his coffee, steam rising around his face. No wonder coffee was so addictive. Like mainlining dopamine. Just like sex, another powerful source. Was he really that superficial? Led around by a chemical in his brain? He thought he was deeper than that. But what if my thoughts aren’t even my own? He wondered and put his coffee down. But that couldn’t be. At least some of his thoughts were his own or else he wouldn’t be thinking what he was. Marvin somehow found relief in that.

The wave of fatigue was pushed back by the caffeine, but he still felt like an empty shell on a beach wishing the tide would come in and take him out to sea. He sensed a creeping hollowness inside his mind and it made his skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. He was saved by his dog, Hagler, who came over and leaned against his thigh, saying he wanted to be petted. Marvin decided to do him one better and reached for his leash to go for a walk.

The following morning, Marvin was lying in bed, listening to the gentle patter of the rain against the window. He was in no rush to get out of bed. It was raining outside and he was warm under his covers. But then he found himself sliding out of bed and heading toward the bathroom before he’d actually decided to do so, and it happened so quickly that his mind lay claim to the decision. As he stood at the sink brushing his teeth, he stared back at his eyes in the mirror and knew otherwise.

He tried to dismiss the thought by assuming he was just on morning autopilot, but it felt different than that, more like someone else was in the driver’s seat. No, not someone, but something undefinable. And then that empty feeling started creeping up on him again. He shook his head and spat out the toothpaste.

When it happened again the next morning, he started to question his free will. If it wasn’t him who decided when he got out of bed, then who or what did? When he got to work, it was still on his mind, bugging him. Whenever he took some small action like scratching his ear, he’d ask himself, was that me? So he looked up his experience online and found it had a name. It was called the ‘Libet Experiment’ and it was a documented thing. It said we were playing catch up with our body’s decisions by a half second or more. So much for free will, he thought. Why wasn’t everyone talking about this? Probably because it wasn’t in the best interest of whatever was making the decisions.

He only experienced it in the mornings when his mind was still quiet from sleep. The rest of the day it was business as usual. He was in the driver’s seat, but he sensed that might just be an illusion because the pace of the day was faster and hid the lag.

When he drove home that evening, he was thinking about how the dopamine seeking acted as a cover for a lack of free will. He was seriously spooked out by the thought when Hagler met him at the front door with his leash in his mouth. Marvin stared at the dog, wondering who made Hagler’s decisions for him. Was it the same entity that got him out of bed in the mornings? he wondered. Maybe they were both just two different costumes of the same entity.

Hagler sat and dropped the leash on the floor. He stared back at Marvin and Marvin knew they were going for a walk. Not later, but right now. Marvin shook his head. Maybe Hagler was running the show. Well, if that was the case, Marvin knew at least he’d get his exercise and eat plenty of biscuits.

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt – Chapter Three

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Bath Time

Rowdy pushes open the patio door to the kitchen and calls out, “Mom, he’s back. The circus dog is here! And he brought my lucky stick.” He holds the door open for Mr. Mutt who pokes his head through the doorway and looks about. It pays to be cautious in the woods.

Rowdy’s mom is checking on tonight’s dinner roasting in the oven. The house smells like a restaurant on a busy day. Mr. Mutt takes one deep breath and is instantly in nose heaven. He doesn’t recognize everything he’s smelling, but mystery has never smelled so good. In a daze of curiosity, he ambles inside and Rowdy slides the patio door closed.

Rowdy’s mom turns from the oven as her son walks in, followed by a very big dog. She looks the dog over and sees a lot of mastiff in him. She’d had a mastiff as a little girl and she’d loved that dog more than anything. And that dog loved her back even more. “So this is the dog from the circus that beat you at tic-tac-toe?”

Rowdy makes a face. “No need to bring that up.”

She smiles. “What’s his name?”

Rowdy pats the dog on his back. “Mr. Mutt.”

She winks at Rowdy. “Mr. Mutt, the Drooler.” Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt – Chapter Three” →

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Chapter Two – Popcorn Catch

The following afternoon, Rowdy plays a game of popcorn catch out on the backyard patio. He tosses a piece of popcorn as high as he can and tries to catch it in his mouth, but it bounces off his nose onto the ground. The blue patio tiles around him are covered in popcorn like white sprinkles on a blue frosted cake.

His mom comes out, leans a broom and dustpan against a nearby lounger for him to use to clean up later, and grabs a handful of popcorn for herself from the bag. “Your aim is improving.”

The boy looks at all the popcorn around him on the patio. “It sure smells good when it hits my nose.”

“Well, you keep at it, Rowdy.” She wipes some butter off his cheek. “You mastered tic-tac-toe, you can master this.” She winks at him and returns inside the house.

Rowdy tosses another piece of popcorn into the air. When he goes to catch it, someone behind him says, “Straighten your neck, then leap at it and snatch it out of the sky.” This was followed by the sound of snapping teeth. Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt” →

The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Chapter One – Tic-Tac-Toe

On a blustery fall day, golden yellow leaves drift across a pale blue sky. Rowdy sits underneath a large chestnut tree on the edge of a sandbox, playing tic-tac-toe against himself. He’d been inside the house winning against one of his older sisters, but she got mad at losing and the other three got mad at the noise of them arguing and eventually all four sisters shouted, “Go play outside!”

He knows sisters are weird, but he’s beginning to wonder if his have developed a hivemind.

When he draws another X in the sand with his lucky stick, he sees that the game is going to be another dud where no one wins. He puts another handful of popcorn in his mouth from the bag of popcorn leftover from his earlier game of popcorn catch, and thinks, I’m just too good to beat, even when I’m playing against myself, even with my lucky stick. But you always want to keep trying, at least that’s what his inventor dad said about robot battles over pancakes this morning. He erases the game with his foot and draws the lines for the next one with the now butter stained stick.

In the woods behind the house, a big brown mutt of a dog chases after a white butterfly as it weaves its way through the Douglas fir trees. He looks to be a mix of a giant Labrador Retriever, mastiff, and a basset hound with big floppy ears. As he chases after the butterfly, he wonders what the flitter-flyers smell like, but he’s only gotten close enough to smell hints of vanilla in the puffs of air below its wings.

As the dog’s pursuit takes him closer to the edge of the woods, he hears the boy’s voice and slows to listen.

The boy’s voice sounds through the trees. “See? I just can’t be beat. I’m the king of tic-tac-toe!”“What?” Continue reading “The Escapades of Rowdy & Mr. Mutt” →

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I used to daydream that my dogs understood me when I spoke to them. I’d make up their responses and speak out loud for them in a goofy voice. They came to recognize this goofy dog voice of mine and would get excited when they heard it. I’d carry on conversations between my dogs and myself in these voices, a sensible one for me and a goofy one for them, imagining how cool it would be if it were real, if they really were thinking what I was saying in this goofy dog voice. I used to think it would make life with dogs so much simpler. Ask them what they wanted, and they could tell me. I’d done this all my life up till a few days ago, when I no longer had to.

“I’m not eating this,” Hamish says, putting his nose up at the kibble I just scooped into his bowl.

Franny looks up from her already empty bowl. “I’ll eat it.”

I give her a stern look. “No you won’t. You already had yours.”

“But I’m still hungry.”

“No. You need to lose weight,” I say.

“But if I lose weight, I’ll be cold and light as an earth worm and the birds will carry me away to some far away tree branch and eat me.”

Hamish shoves his bowl away with his snout. “I’m not eating this. It has rat poop in it.”

“So that’s what that was.” Huckleberry licks the crumbs off his lips. “I’ve been wondering all week what that new flavor was.”

Hamish pokes at his food with his snout. “It’s been there since he opened the new bag.”

“What?” I ask. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God” →

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I get the stepladder from the garage, open it up under the flickering kitchen ceiling light and up I climb. My three dogs gather around to watch. We spend so much time together it’s as if I can hear their thoughts.

“What’s Raud doing up on that ladder?” wonders Hamish, a honey-brown Labrador and golden retriever mix and the youngest of the three.

“This is new. Maybe it involves food,” thinks Franny, the calorically challenged yellow Lab.

“Is there a ball up there?” wonders Huckleberry, the chocolate Lab. He’s obsessed with anything that can be thrown so that he can retrieve it. But some things are better for retrieving, like his ball, which is always nearby. At the moment he’s dropped it at the base of the ladder. “You could really throw it far from up there, Raud.”

As I unscrew the knob that holds the frosted glass bowl over the light, the memory of installing these lights to replace the fluorescent tube lights crosses my mind’s eye. The fluorescent light felt too much like an office. I put the knob in my shirt pocket and lower the glass bowl, placing it on the step ladder’s fold-out shelf where the paint bucket goes, dried blue and cream paint drippings surround it. I check the bulb’s fit. It’s loose like I thought, so I tighten it, then replace the glass bowl and screw the knob back in place.

Standing on the stepladder, I look about for the next distraction, avoiding going back to the drawing lessons on the drafting table. Learning to draw cartoons takes more concentration than I realized. Outside, it’s raining hard. The gentle patter on the patio awning has become a steady growl. Though it’s only midday, it’s dusk out there.

When lighting strikes so close there’s no separation between the flash and the boom, my whole body startles so badly I lose my balance. As I fall, I reach out to grab the edge of the kitchen counter, but I’m too slow and the blue Formica swoops up toward my head. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues” →