Hey packmate,

Whisker-tingling adventures tonight! Got mistaken for Pawsburgh’s most eligible bachelor and waded through a sea of fur-filled flirtation. Ended up leading the most charming tails on a literary escapade they won’t soon forget. Turns out, this beagle’s heart beats not for a single suitor but for a page-turning pack of pups. Stay tuned for the next chapter in the saga of the Beagle Bard.

Tail wags and dog-eared dreams,
Jackson Ray 🐾✨

Listen to the story here

Strange times in Pawsburgh, I’d say – that time when a visage of mine got tacked onto the billboard jutting out like a reprimanding finger over Briard Bridge, branding me the primo bachelor of this canine caboodle. There I was, Jackson Ray, fur brushed to glossy strokes of black, white, and brown; a beagle with a heart swinging like a pendulum between adventure and serenity, now staring down the barking madness of Pawsburgh’s own furred frenzy of companionship.

I trotted beneath the neon scribblings, paws padding ever so slightly unsteady on the cobblestone path to Puppy Plate, where the perfume of charred steak drifted amongst the sidewalk symphony. The city howled and yipped around me, a sonnet of pure doggone desire, and there I hoofed it, towards a rendezvous with destiny or disaster – whatever mutt muses deal in these days.

The dusk threw long shadows as I shimmied into Corgi’s Crepes, a joint where the tail-wags were thick on the ground and every glance shimmered with unspoken yearnings. Tongues flopping out over bowls of water beneath the glint of contestant eyes. I sniffed, once, twice — a nervous habit when the spotlight barks your name.

“Jackson Ray, the patchwork Beagle with more tails to spin than the Emerald Eskimo Estuary has fish,” chimed a chiwawa from the corner, her tongue an impudent pink strip in the creeping shades of twilight.

A bark rolled out from my lips, manners dictating I nod to each dame with a grace mimicking that willow on my grassy hilltop – it’d do no good letting them sense the jitterbugs racing through my veins like greyhounds after a mechanical hare.

“Ladies,” I crooned, and our dance began; a peculiar sway like the pages of Thompson whipped by a desert storm, all slurred whispers and daring declarations.

“Would’st thou, o noble Jackson, fancy a trot to Malamute Mountain?” one suitor, a poodle as fluffy as a cumulus cloud, batted long lashes, her words dusted with the frost of the high peaks.

“And why, Darling Puff,” I drolled, “would I trade an evening of your delectable company for the lonesome chill of the altitude?”

She pouted, a perfect moue, and distant howls from the mountain mourned the silence hanging like a verdict.

Another stepped forward, an adventurous spaniel with eyes that held the spark of Pawsburgh in all its untold lore.

“Might I entice you instead, Jackson, with a moonlit paddle by the Emerald Eskimo Estuary?” the promise of intrigue reflecting off her coat.

Aye, the heartstrings played a tune, but tonight mine were as taut as the leash laws in this whimsical town.

Waggling my ears, I addressed my entourage with the ferment of a mind awash in dog beer, “Belles of Bone and Bark, each of you a burst of joy that’d make every crumb at Dog’s Delicacies jealous. Yet, my tail wags to the beat of a different drum, chasing neither the mountain’s echo nor the estuary’s gleam.”

With a mirth that sent tails spinning, I unleashed my grand declaration. “What say you all to a night of whimsy at The Wagging Tail Bookstore? Where tales slumber in every spine and a story awaits our collective breath to rise like flighty pigeons from a Raoul Duke fever-dream?”

Their barks crescendoed, a harmonious affirmation, and together we paraded through the streets, as merry as misfits could muster, with a beagle leading the band of hopeful hearts.

The round moon was our spotlight, and the pitter-patter of our paws against Pawsburgh cobbles was the cadence of a tale unfolding – one of laughter, boundless affection, and the thrill of the chase, forever imprinted beneath the swirling cosmos of this waggish world.

The End.