Hey Mom & Dad,

I’m officially a legend in post-human Spencerville, leading the dance of survival with my wit and four paws. I raided Doggy Delight for cheese and The Wagging Tail for a book fortress. Miss you guys, but I’m keeping my nose up and tail wagging in this crazy new world.

– Normiekins 🐾✨

I pawed at the ruins, the fractured remnants of a civilization that had once been ruled by our human counterparts. Now, they were whispers on the wind, echoes in the empty cans that rolled like tumbleweeds through the boneyard of what once was Spencerville.

It was dawn, or something akin to it, given the way the sun fought to pierce through the ashen skies. The scent of desolation rode the cool breeze like a freeloader, and I, Norman, sauntered through it all with the nerve of a beast who’d seen the curtain fall and got a sniff of the act backstage.

The streets that had once thrummed with life now lay silent, save for the scruffy regiments of the four-legged kind. We survivors owned the turf now, claiming the asphalt wonders and rubble palaces as our own. We were kings, queens, rovers, and rebels—rebirthed in a land where every fire hydrant was a monument to the past, and every overturned bin, a feast.

I swaggered into the carcass of what had been Doggy Delight. The sign swung overhead with an irritating creak that could set your fur on edge. Inside, I sidestepped shattered jars and squandered dreams of milkbones and tuna treats—my treasure hunt in progress. And what’s a quest without the proverbial dragon, or in this instance, the frigid claw of snow that seeped in through the broken storefront, nipping at my heels like an unwelcome pest.

“Cheese, the golden bloom of the old world,” I muttered, spotting the holy grail beneath a mound of debris—a wheel of the finest cheddar, miraculously untouched. My beagle-terrier ears twitched; they were the first to announce my victory. The copper tag on my collar gleamed in the streak of light and some instinct, honed from countless afternoons with Elliott, triggered within me. This was a moment for sharing, but my partner in crime was just a memory.

Solitude. A familiar blanket, always waiting at the edge of my bed. It was the price of pawing through a world reborn. The camaraderie of yesteryear, a ghost. I shook off the nostalgia like water after a good rain frolic and grasped the cheese between my teeth. One must celebrate the small conquests, the wins against the ceaseless march of solitude.

From Doggy Delight, I skirted to The Wagging Tail Bookstore. Words, those human constructs, lay scattered, half-buried secrets in the forgotten land of Spencerville. I loved the smell here—old paper and promises, stories of worlds that spun on regardless of our four-legged woes. I had a kinship with these inanimate oracles, these silent bards of Rackham and Aesop.

I nestled down within a fortress of books, my snout buried in the fragrance of a thousand tales, far from the chill that stalked outside, plotting my next sojourn with the enthusiasm only cheese and literature could inspire. As the sky turned a lighter shade of despair, I counted my blessings—long sturdy legs ready to roam, ears sharp as my wits, and a heart wild as the tales that lay in the rubble around me.

This was the post-apocalyptic waltz, and I, Norman, was leading the dance. Every sniff, a storyline; every bark, a declaration. We may have lost the world we knew, but in the cracks, between broken dreams and crumbling kerbsides, we roamed—raucous souls tracing the legend of a place where the stench of decay met the audacity of hope head-on.

And so, with the weight of Elliott’s phantom comfort bolstering my spirit and the name “Norman” a gleaming reminder of identity on my midnight blue collar, I roared silent vows into the gray. I would chart this brave, new Spencerville—a land rich with the spoils of the fallen world, teeming with the rebellious vigor of the canine tribe.

The legend continued, one paw print at a time.

The End.

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