Hey there! Just wanted to let you know I’ve been having a grand ol’ adventure sniffing out mysteries and making new friends. Life’s a bit of a ruff ride sometimes, but you know me, always up for the challenge. Hope all’s well on your end!

– Stitch 🐾

There ain’t nothing more puzzling to a dog like me than why humans go and ruin a perfectly good stretch of dirt. Now, I’m Stitch, a mutt of indeterminate origins and spectacularly floppy ears, and I’ve been round these parts long enough to sniff out trouble before it starts. But let me tell you, when the Cataclysm hit Pawsburg, even the tips of my whiskers felt the tremor.

You see, Pawsburg used to be the kind of place where a dog could find a decent bone with a modicum of effort and a slight tilting of the ol’ head. But ever since the Cataclysm—a doozy of an event that left half the town lookin’ like a chew toy after a particularly vigorous session by yours truly—things have been mighty different. Even the humans, strange critters that they are, seemed bent on making everything even more complicated.

So there I was, padding through the remnants of a grocery store, scavenging for anything that still smelled like dinner and less like disaster. That’s when I stumbled upon Herbert, the self-appointed mayor of this here post-apocalyptic dreamscape. Herbert was a stout fellow whose trousers seemed to have surrendered to gravity long ago, now held up solely by the grace of his suspenders.

“Stitch!” Herbert hollered, which startled a particularly noisy pigeon right off his bald patch. The pigeon gave me a look that questioned my very existence, then flapped off, no doubt to spread some more rumors about us all being crazy.

“Herbert,” I replied with a wag that suggested I found his predicament amusing, for I did.

Herbert had one of them lists—the kind humans are so fond of. It was scribbled on the back of an old pizza menu, with bullet points that ranged from “rebuild the town hall” to “find out what that smell is near the river.”

“Got us a town meeting tonight, Stitch,” Herbert said, looking about as authoritative as a squirrel giving directions in a maze.

Now, Town Meetings in Pawsburg were a spectacle. Every living creature gathered at what used to be the old school gymnasium, now mostly roofless but still largely serviceable in that peculiar way post-catastrophic buildings are. The Survival Council (a name that still tickles my tail) comprised folks whose only real qualification was breathing and showing up somewhat regularly.

As we all gathered in the shell of civilization’s former glory, I took my usual place next to Marge, a woman with the kind of strength that could intimidate a tank yet somehow always had an extra biscuit for a scruffy dog like me.

Herbert stood up and cleared his throat, which, considering his girth, sounded more like a foghorn preparing for battle. “First order of business,” he began, “is the new zoning laws for the Market District.”

The Market District, I should clarify, consisted of exactly two stalls: one selling remnants of canned goods and another that was strongly suspected of peddling “recycled” chewing gum. The argument about who owned which half of what used to be a butcher’s shop had been raging since the Cataclysm. Let me tell you, it could get heated. Why, just the other day, I saw Old Man Jenkins squabble over a can of beans like it was the last squeaky toy on Earth.

Herbert droned on about territory and trade, somethin’ ’bout “no snacks less than three feet from the stall,” which frankly was an affront to my entire existence. Just when I was about to lose interest and go chase that squirrel-eyeing pigeon, something curious happened.

A low growl rose from the audience—not a doggy one mind you, but one from Rita, a fierce survivor with an equally fierce sense of smell. Rita had found something intriguing wrapped in a scrap of the Daily Catastrophist—a pair of bowling shoes, pristine as the moment they rolled out the factory, though heaven knows why bowling shoes survived the Cataclysm when half the houses didn’t.

“Stitch,” Rita called, holding the shoes up high like she’d discovered the Holy Grail, “Think you’d fit in these?”

Before I could retort that dogs don’t bowl (though I once saw a Dachshund try, and it was hilarious), Herbert bellowed, “Order! Who’s got a real agenda item?”

A moment’s pause settled over the crowd; in this silent interim, a decision was silently made: there would be no more bickering over insignificant shoe sizes or the ownership of phantom butcher shops. We had to come together, paws and hands—in this, the melancholy aftermath of our once bustling Pawsburg.

And so, while the humans debated loftier goals, I slipped away—to continue sniffing out troubles, and perhaps one day, with these mismatched paws, to unearth a bone worthy of the rebuilt, slightly insane, undeniably spirited Pawsburg.