“Hey Ma and Pa, a Cataclysm hit Spencerville bad. 💥Floods, chaos. But us dogs? We’re survivors, me leading the pack. 🐕‍🦺 Faced fear and swam, saved buddies, consoled the scared. 🏊‍♂️🐾😢 Even found time for a nudge and a wag. 🐶 We’re rebuilding, – step by furry step. Together always, we chase tomorrow’s sunrise. 🌅 After all, isn’t life all about beginnings? 🐾 Love, Lil Fen 🦴”

Listen to the story here.

Life in Spencerville had always been blessedly uncomplicated until the arrival of the Cataclysm – an event of such catastrophic proportions that it shook the very foundations of our canine utopia. Stripped of their sturdy homes and beloved establishments – the Tail Wagger’s Tailor, Fetch! Toys and Treats, Pooched Potatoes – the cultural cornerstones of our dog-blessed civilization, we found ourselves on the precipice of desolation.

Feeling the tremor beneath my paws and hearing the Council of Terriers howl in despair from their perch at the Fawn Pug Palace, I knew things were dire. My name is Fenway, and I am a survivor.

Determined to lead, I, despite my aversion to swimming, swam across the flooded South Siberian Summit, my trusted tennis ball bobbing beside me – a buoy amongst the chaos. Along the route, I helped Barkley, the bulldog, and Lil Dot navigate the water, even though the rhythmic, frightened whimpers she emitted sounded uncomfortably like the music she so adored.

And then, there was dear Wrigley, found shaking on a ragged chunk of what was once the Waggle n’ Wok. As though to comfort him, I, ignoring my own exhaustion, and the scent of the all-pervasive chaos, playfully nudged him with a damp snout, his panting subsiding to an amicable wag of his tail. His eyes, weary but daring to hope, seemed to mirror a reflection of resilience, my own.

As for poor Millie, whose taste for an entire chicken was always a source of mirth, sat defeated atop an upturned box of chicken, looking perplexed and scared. Melancholy washed over me as memories of her prancing about Lower Silver Siberian Summit seeped into my consciousness.

There was work to be done, of course, tail-end-high amounts of it. And yet, I could not disregard a sense of urgency to re-establish our camaraderie. For what was Spencerville without its harmonious collection of diverse personalities, the varied accents, the chomping contests and our shared conviction of a someday-reunion with our humans?

My half-sibling, Sampson, ever enthusiastic in his immeasurable stupidity, proposed barking at the Cataclysm, while Marley, dear Marley, suggested a retreat to the phantom allure of the human world. Ah, classic Marley!

Fat Russel wagged his tail in befuddled helplessness. He was, after all, the gentlest of brutes, devoid of any calculated plan unless it involved food. Spencer, however, the wise old pug, suggested something radically different – a rebuild. He alone believed in the resilience of our city. He believed that we had the will and, equally importantly, the opposable dewclaws, to recover, recover, and be resilient.

And slowly, dogged by our desire to survive and guided by the sassy spirit of that old pug, Spencer, we began our resurrection from the remnants of the Cataclysm. Inch by scraped inch, we clawed back our lives from the jaws of the Cataclysm. We salvaged. We toiled. We hoped.

We proved, once again, that belonging was not about shared streets or stores, but about holding on to one another in the heart of Peril. We were Spencerville. We were Survivors. And in the face of the end, we chose to begin, once again. After all, dear friend, life in Spencerville was never about an end, but of infinite beginnings.

The End.