Hey Sarah,

Just finished another epic tail-wagging adventure in Pawsburgh with pals like Bella and Max. Swapped the quiet living room for cobblestone antics, gobbled up Husky’s hotcakes, and even brushed paws with art that rivaled our blue ball! I’m back now, waiting for the sound of you coming home – belly on the carpet, heart filled with stories.

Catch you on the flip side,

Henry 🐾

Listen to the story here

Sarah had disappeared behind the great looming door, the one that periodically swallowed her whole, leaving behind this silence, so loud in its void. You know me, good ol’ Henry, sprawled upon the sun-dappled carpet, twitching with the remnants of an ambient dream. The clock ticked, a metronome to my idleness, but within my chest beat the clandestine compass that always knew the way to where fun unfurled its tantalizing scents and sounds: Pawsburgh.

In a blink, one world exchanged for another. I stood, not in the home cradled in red-brick arms but upon the cobblestones of Quartz Qimmiq Quarter, the hum of Pawsburgh pulsing around me like a symphony of sniffs and wagging tales.

Max barked a greeting from beneath the sign of Pom’s Pies, his howls slicing the air with an excitement only a Beagle’s throat can muster. And there she was too, Bella—never did moonlight manifest so eloquently in a fur coat. We exchanged no hellos. No, in Pawsburgh, a sniff, a nose-bump, they serve the pleasantries just fine.

“How ’bout we hit Husky’s Hotcakes, folks?” I said, bushy tail avowing my hunger. A chorus of agreeable yips met my suggestion. One could argue there’s no finer establishment in town, not when hotcakes sizzle and dance upon the griddle, golden and true to their name.

Onyx Otterhound Oasis stretched out before us after our feast, the haven of many secrets veiled in the entwining vines of its misty gardens. I led the pace, my amber gaze catching the glimmer of adventure as we trespassed the bounds of the familiar, our hearts aligned with the treasures of the untold.

“A ball,” I murmured mid-trot, that familiar blue rubber sphere tumbling in my thoughts. Never mind that it idled far away, in another realm, frayed by affection and time. Pawsburgh had its own charms, its own spells to cast. And it’s true, amidst the lustrous brushes of The Furry Friends Art Gallery, I spotted a twin to my earthly token – cerulean and gleaming as if made from the very skies above. It called to me, and who was I to deny such a siren’s serenade?

Throughout my escapades, I held the odious memory of broccoli at bay; the reviled greenery wielded no power here. Pawsburgh thrived on joys, and culinary grievances bowed before the might of Pup’s Paella.

Time flows like a capricious stream in Pawsburgh, and dusk called us to gather before the Howling Husky Hardware Store—a place of hammers and nails that constructed dreams deferred by daylight’s reality.

Softly, the first star daubed the blues and oranges of twilight. Bella pranced beside me, Max panting as though his lungs could hold the very wind. And there, under the benevolent eye of the night, I recounted the sunlit patches on living room floors and the slobbery affection for my beloved ball, realizing that Pawsburgh and home held hands across dimensions, entwined like braided ropes of life’s continuum.

Yet, even as shadows beckoned the veil of partitions betwixt worlds, my tale woven into the hearts of my fellow canines, I knew that Sarah awaited, that the red-brick embrace was my terminus. So, under the watchful, winking stars of the magical townscape, Henry, the Chocolate Labrador of boundless zeal, faded from Pawsburgh, carrying with him adventures to whisper to a friend.

And there I was, belly to the carpet, tail concluding its final thump; a dreamer returned, awaiting the creak of Sarah’s return, ready to wag the tale of a place known to dogs as the fantastical Pawsburgh.

The End.

Share This Story: