Hey Daniel 👋, believe it or not, I’ve moonlighted as the accidental adventurer of Pawsburgh! From elegant gatherings at Mastiff Meadows to being an unwitting island castaway with the canine crew, I braved the elements (and coconuts) in true wanderlust spirit. I’m back with my paws firmly planted at home, savoring victory watermelon chunks. Remember, every tail wag has a tale! 🐾 – Zed the Intrepid

Listen to the story here

We skip from the comfort of our blankets and Daniel’s oblivious snores into the crisp bite of night. Tail wagging in anticipatory delight, I follow the clandestine canine crowd as we file through unseen portals leading us to Pawsburgh, evanescent and spectral in the luminescent glow of the full moon’s smile.

Mystery shrouds Mastiff Meadows, but we trot with purpose to the rendezvous, beguiled by fantasies of Samoyed Square, Malamute Mountain, the city that awaits our nocturnal capers. Before Baxter and Bella, the mirthful pack converges, navigating the cobblestones like seasoned explorers returned once more to a familiar yet always wondrous realm.

“Zed! Solid of you to join,” woofs Baxter with a ceremonious bow no less grandiose than if he were the mayor of an even grander dog metropolis.

But as the festivities commence and companions scatter to their preferred haunts – some to Pawfect Pastries, others for a strut down the aisles of Pet Partners Pet Supplies – I am uncharacteristically drawn to the hushed edge of Pawsburgh, where the shadows coalesce and whisper of adventures not sanctioned on your ordinary pamphlet of daily attractions.

No more than a game, I reason – an extension of a sun-soaked run through Dewdrop Gardens, a worthy opponent for my indomitable blue ball. I embark alone, vicinity unrecognizable before long; even Pawsburgh has its uncharted territories, and lo! How supreme the irony that I, the quirkiest of French Bulldogs, should find myself – in the full, rich vein of Tom Stoppard’s protagonists – inexplicably stranded amid them.

Simmering beneath the surface of our dogged personalities is the instinctive, though often dormant, art of survival. And so, as the horizon bleeds the timid hues of a world waking, I continue into the unknown terrain that now manifests as an island, sundered from the hum of Pawsburgh proper. No Bella in tow, no Baxter to herald this as but a game. An island, indeed, an island indeed.

Behold, the cacophony of my inner voice stalls as would a notorious understudy on opening night as the forlorn cacophony of stranded comrades sounds out. Huddled together on sandy shorelines are fur-clad castaways, befuddled as Mr. Nutters after an unwitting plunge from the safety of the couch.

We gather, setting aside the memory of preferred chophouses and those pastries, perfectly pawed, that seem in this trial so distant a memory as to suggest they were mirage all along. We scheme, exchanging insights as would playwrights over flagons of mead, on crafting shelters from driftwood and broad leaves, sustaining on coconut (beware the woeful citrus!) and crafting rescue signals from stones and seaweed.

In true Stoppard fashion, our venture at times dips toes into the theatrically absurd; a band of dogs orchestrating their own salvation from an island mirage in search of that familiar wag, that blissful reunion with the world we slipped away from. With each tide’s turn, though, our efforts sharpen until the day a vessel approaches – not a ship of man, but a bark sturdy and true, manned by dogs of seafaring stock.

Saved, we return to the Pawsburgh we left behind, to chew on frozen watermelon chunks and let slip tales of the travail to our humans. Daniel listens intently, scratching that spot behind my ear in the way that only he can, as I recount the escapade, our triumph over the elemental unknown, and my jaunt through the shadowed thicket of stranded survival.

“A fine mess, that,” he chuckles, blithely unaware that within my twinkle, the sly crook to my ear has deepened, the theater of my adventures a testament to more than just my jaunty canine ways.

The End.