Hey Mom,

Just wanted to let you know I’ve been doing some soul-searching by the fire, fluff style. Turns out, I’m not just your average four-legged philosopher, but the heart of quite a few tales here in Spencerville. Whether I’m chasing dreams or tennis balls, I leave a bit of sparkle wherever I go (though I’m partial to the sparkles on your jumper). Flicker says I’ve never left your heart, and that’s the best Christmas gift a pup could ask for. So here’s a tail wag to us, and the stories we’re part of together.

Merry Christmas, with a wag and a woof,
Puki (a.k.a. Louie) 🐾🎄✨

Listen to the story here

As the snowflakes danced like a congregation of dainty crystal ballerinas upon the windowpane, I sat, curled upon my cushioned throne, a regal Lhasa Apso lost in thought. The twilight of Christmas Eve had wrapped Spencerville in a hushed velvet robe, the kind only December could tailor with such precision. There, beyond the frosted glass, the lights of the Pug Palace glimmered faintly, whispering tales of celebrations within.

“Mulling over the meaning of life again, Puki?” The voice came not from the room but from someplace softer—a space reserved for musings and imaginings. It was Flicker, the guardian angel known to frequent these parts, her spectral tail flicking with a rhythm suggesting a knowing beyond my grasp.

“Spirit or specter, your timing is impeccable,” I quipped, my tone carrying a hint of the impenetrable blue that often follows the sun’s abdication. “I’m caught up in a bit of festive introspection is all.”

She fluttered closer, her form blurring the line between here and there, now and then. “Your heart seems heavier than that blue tennis ball you so adore, my friend.” Flicker’s eyes held the stories of a thousand canine lives, each narrative a thread in Spencerville’s grand tapestry.

“I suppose I feel a tad invisible,” I confessed, even as my coat shimmered golden by the fire’s glow, “like an echo that’s forgotten the shout that birthed it.” The humans bundled in their holiday bustle, the other pets preoccupied with Yuletide frolics, their laughter a chorus I couldn’t quite join.

Unfazed, Flicker’s soft chuckle soothed the edges of my melancholy. “Puki, do you not recognize the weight of your own paw prints?” she chided gently. And then, with a tail wave that seemed to stir the very air, the room fell away, and the vignettes began to spill forth.

We watched as my mom held a garment that bore my likeness, her eyes misty with silent words of love and longing. “You see,” Flicker murmured, “you’ve never left her heart.”

In another scene, my pal Josh, the noble Doberman, reenacted my legendary chase of the elusive blue orb, invoking hearty guffaws from the audience of our furry kin. “Your spirit kindles joy even in your absence,” my ethereal companion noted.

Holly, trotting by my side, now brimmed with the very hope she embodied, her spirit infused with the memories of our shared sun-soaked siestas and moonlit trots. And dear Buppee, his whiskered face lined with wise contemplation, recounted tales to pups that sparked the daring dreams only a life well-lived can inspire.

Each vignette, a snapshot of the love I’d cast like pebbles upon the waters of life, rippling out into infinity.

“Consider this,” Flicker intoned as the scenes wove together into a shimmering collage, “the warmth you’ve granted to others merely by being Puki. In sight or out of sight, your essence burns bright in every heart you’ve touched.”

The room returned just as my mom entered, her gaze locking with mine. There were no words, only the profound understanding that exists between those forever entwined. My tail, that perpetual motion machine, even now wove the air with strokes of gratitude and the acknowledgment of my unseen impact.

“Who knew an old chap like me could be so… so indispensable?” I managed, my voice rough around the edges, the way autumn leaves crumble to adobe when given to the earth.

Flicker smiled, a bend of light upon the ether. “Who ever knows their own story’s worth?” With that, she dissolved into the silence that lives between snowflakes.

The clock struck a chime that felt like a beginning, and my heart, once heavy, now lifted with a buoyancy that outmatched even those famed tennis balls. There, amidst the enchantment of a Spencerville Christmas Eve, the revelry found its last missing jingle.

And as I laid my head upon the festive duvet, nary a dream could rival the story I now knew by heart: It’s a wonderful bark, indeed.

The End.