Hey Mom,

Just a quick pawdate from your favorite son, Beefy. Post-Rumble life’s barking mad but I’m keeping the peace in Spencerville, sharing treats, and leading the pack like the good boy you raised me to be. Miss your cooking and your cuddles. Tail wags and face licks until we meet again.

Love and slobbers,
Beefy 🐾

Listen to the story here

Life before the Great Rumble was a feast of smells and warmth, the kind of life a bulldog named Beefy could roll around in like a good back scratch. Yeah, I’m Beefy – stout-hearted, brindle-coated, a tad on the stubborn side, but don’t let that fool you. I may have been the kind of pooch to soak up sun on my Mom’s porch, but now I’m living out my dog days in Spencerville, a post-apocalyptic paradise of a sort.

The Rumble came and turned all our worlds upside down – shook us out of our collars. It left us with Choco Chihuahua Castle half buried in biscuit dust, Golden Gate Gardens looking more like a salad after a toss-up, and Western Husky Hill… well, let’s just say the sleds ain’t sledding no more.

I’d started my day like any other in this topsy-turvy town, with a saunter down Main Street, my paws padding out a rhythm on the cracked pavement. First stop: The Woofy Bakery. They’ve got these peanut butter bacon crunchies that’d make you do tricks you never thought you’d agree to. Miss Sniffles, the pug behind the counter, knows just how I like ’em – extra crispy.

With a nudge of my snout, I’d say, “Good morning, Miss Sniffles. One of the usual, if you please.”

She’d chuckle, that wrinkled face crinkling even more. “Beefy, darling, your breakfast is the highlight of my day.”

I’d wag in thanks and make my way to Pooched Potatoes. Now don’t get your tails in a twist. You might think it uncanny – a bulldog lunching on spuds. Well, in Spencerville, after the world turns upside down, you develop a taste for the curious.

Along the way, I bumped into Spartacus, a Doberman with a heart as soft as his head was hard. “Beefy, my man, up for a romp through the gardens?”

“Nah, Spartacus,” I’d say, my voice steady as my gait. “Got a hankering for potatoes. Adventure will have to wait.”

He’d lift a brow in that haughty way of his, but I’d leave him with a bark, a promise of future escapades.

The day was young when I sat down on the ruins of what once was Pup-Peroni. The sight could sour your milk, but the spuds from Pooched tasted as close to Mom’s cooking as I could muster. Took me back to those lazy Sundays, her and me, and a hotdog (not for sharing!). I closed my eyes and let the memories wash over me, like the warmth of a late afternoon sunbeam.

I’d been chewin’ through a day’s spirit, thinking of this and that, when a commotion stirred up by the Western Husky Hill caught my ear. I trotted over, my belly full, to find a gaggle of mutts tangled in a debacle over a found stash of squeaky toys, the most prized find post-Rumble.

“Steady now,” I said, lumbering into the fray. “There’s enough squeak to go around.”

One by one, they calmed, looking to me with a measure of respect. Maybe it was my size, perhaps my tone, warm and firm. Or maybe, just maybe, it was that even in the chaos of a new world, the need for a leader, a friend, was the one thing unchanged.

I guided them as we divvied up the treasure. No need for a tussle when there was plenty. As the night crept upon our little band, the stars peered down on Spencerville – a shred of the old world, a beacon in the new.

When I finally curled up in my regular spot by what remained of Pooched Potatoes, I thought of Mom. I missed her more than steak – and that’s saying something. But here in Spencerville, with my belly full and my friends close, I knew I’d wait patiently. For reunions, for bellies to be rubbed, for love to be shared once again.

So there I lay, amidst the crumbed pillars of a world gone by, dreaming… Dreaming not of destruction, nor of sorrow, for I had hope and a full belly, and in Spencerville, that was plenty.

The End.