Hey family, it’s Zozo here! Just checking in from Spencerville’s endless weekend – think winged squirrels and chicken martinis! I’m rocking canine galas in couture (despite my waddle), indulging at eternal brunches, and reminiscing about our games of fetch. Here, every sniff and wag weave tales of joy, while I await our reunion, cozy in a fur-wrapped pause of time. Miss your touches and laughter, but I’m keeping the sun warm for us all. Love and slobbery kisses, Zozo 🐾💕✨

Listen to the story here

I remember the moment I first set paw in Spencerville as though it were yesterday. The air was thick with the scents of dream-bones and the skies were manned by flocks of winged squirrels—an olfactory utopia lending itself to the vibrant atmosphere in which I found myself. I, Zoey, a bulldog who had ambled through life with a certain je ne sais quoi, found my afterlife to be an endless weekend, a perpetual patch of sun upon the floor.

Today, I find myself lounging upon the velvet green of Cream Maltese Meadow, eyeing the lazy buzz of the bumblebees. At “Whiskers and Wings,” they concoct a sensational chicken martini—shaken, not stir-pawed. One finds solace in such novelties when the heart pines for the gravelly timbre of the family’s youngest’s laughter or the gentle stroke of a weathered hand.

But hark! Lest I amble into melancholy, for joy is a companion to my days and nights. There are galas to attend at “Canine Couture Clothing,” where I don a ruff of unparalleled elegance, though my gait does little justice to haute couture.

The Fetching Deli, a venue of perpetual brunch, beckons with its aromatic allure. Here, I engage in the ceremonial nibble of treats unmarred by the sniff of disdain I once held for the blasphemous broccoli. Then off I trot to “Happy Hounds Dog Walking,” where the pursuit of fitness is more a parade of congenial banter and less about the maintenance of waistlines. Who needs waistlines when one can chase sticks across the fantastic corridor of “Maltese Meadow”?

In this anthology of life, I am both actor and spectator. A common thread weaves through the days, a relentless memory of the chuck it ball I once teased and fetched—a microcosm of life’s simple pleasures.

Seasons turn here too, marked by the shedding of ghostly fur that carpets the hallowed grounds of Yellow Tan Dalmatian Desert. There, under the warmth of a gentle sun, our forms sprawl in shapes that invite the softest zephyrs to play tag on our bellies. There’s mirth in the minutiae, for even a speckled leaf spiraling to the ground becomes a dancer in Spencerville’s grand theater, another story unfolding.

You might imagine Twilight Bark, rife with gossip and the regaling of tales both tall and wide. But let me assure you, the managerial bunch does manage a rather tight ship. Mischief is afoot as ever, with a belly rub but a wink away, a luscious bone always to be unearthed in some dig or the other.

The drama of life is but a quiet hum in the belly of Spencerville. Parcel-bearing strangers receive gales of welcome rather than growls, and the nefarious whoosh of vacuum cleaners is but a distant legend.

I am the keeper of time, a teller of my tale. And so I narrate, between slurps of my chicken martini, the unwritten chapters of an existence drenched in love—a waiting game wrapped in fur, echoing the soul’s desire for reunion.

Yet, as I cast my gaze upon the horizon, lingering on the silhouette of shapes at play, is it wrong to wish the clock’s hands to slow their dance? For in Spencerville, my friends, every moment is a caress, every laugh a sonnet, and every friend part of the great cosmic ballet spun from the love that endures, even beyond the edge of time’s precipice.

The End.