Hey Mom 🐾

U won’t believe my day. Turned detective with June, sniffed out a portal in Pawsburgh – yes, like your sci-fi shows! We saved an alt-universe version of our park. Just another ‘ordinary’ Thursday! Love ya, save me some treats, will ya?

Buddy, your paw-some hero 🦴🕵️‍♂️

Listen to the story here

It had started as a routine Thursday – if any day in Pawsburgh could be deemed ‘routine’. I’m Buddy, by the way, the glossy-coated Chihuahua of not-quite-legend-but-close-enough stature. A dog with a tale. And, trust me, you wouldn’t want to miss this one.

The sun was barely up, the kind of morning where the sun loitered behind clouds like a shy child at a party. After my usual rounds of enthusiastic morning nuzzles with Mom (she has these, what do you call them, jobs?), she headed out, and I was set free for a day’s adventure.

So, there I was at Opal Pomeranian Park, with my plush Lamb chop held proudly between my teeth, basking in the early glows on a bench near Pearl Papillon Promenade. That’s when June trotted up, that light-brown coat of hers shimmering in the dappled sunlight.

“Buddy, you smell that?” June asked, with a sniffle and a curious tilt of her white-tipped snout.

“Smell what?” I pawed at my Lamb chop, assuming she meant my epic battle scent. “Victory?”

“No, something… strange,” she said.

And that’s when I smelled it, too. A scent that didn’t belong to Pawsburgh. It was electric, sharp – like a storm but not quite. Not natural, anyway.

“Should we ignore it?” I proffered, but I knew June. Adventure was our shared middle name.

The scent led us towards Newfoundland Nook. I could almost taste the oddity in the air now, it was so strong. Newfoundland Nook was quieter than usual, the whimpering of the wind punctuating the stillness. We rounded the corner, and that’s when we saw it – glittering like a gate from another world.

“Is that… a portal?” June barked, her ears perked up.

Pawsburgh had its oddities, sure, but a whirling vortex of shimmering air was new.

“I don’t remember this from the brochure,” I quipped, but my humor was thin, unlike the strange barrier before us.

June and I glanced at each other, an unspoken pact forming between us. What’s life without a little risk, right?

We stepped through.

On the other side, Pawsburgh… was not. The air thrummed with a strange energy, the sky an unsettling shade of blue I’d never seen. Buildings were warped, the streets a-twist. We stood outside a distorted version of Barking BBQ, its signage swirling.

“A parallel Pawsburgh?” June pondered. “A Pawsburgh… upside down?”

“You’ve been watching too many of mom’s sci-fi shows,” I said, my voice betraying my awe. I turned to the contorted Barker’s Bakery before us. “Shall we grab a treat while we navigate this cosmic conundrum?”

Her laugh, albeit uneasy, was the perfect respite from the mounting tension.

We prowled this alien avenue, passing a peculiar Pup’s Parfait and a Doggie Daycare that seemed to lean away from us in this odd dimension. The citizens here were versions of our friends but distant, their eyes glazed with stars.

“We need to understand this,” I mused. “There’s an order to things, a doggy decorum. This… chaos. It’s anathema.”

June nodded. “Let’s sniff out the center of this, the eye of the metaphorical cat, if you would.”

A stroll through an eerie Best in Show Photography brought us to the source of the scent – a pulsating orb, the heart of the change.

“Is that… a thingy?” June attempted, her commanding grasp of the English language failing her.

“The technical term, yes,” I chuckled, and in that laughter, we found our courage.

Approaching the orb, I could sense June’s resolve beside me. It hummed with a frequency that tickled my whiskers. Without a word, we each placed a trembling paw upon its surface.

The world flipped back around, and Pawsburgh, our familiar, loving Pawsburgh, snapped into place around us.

“Did we… fix it?” June asked, her gaze meeting mine.

“I’d say a narrative more ‘resolved’ than ‘fixed’,” I pondered aloud. “But let’s leave the philosophical musings for another day.”

As we walked back towards Opal Pomeranian Park, my thoughts turned to cuddles and warmth, to the simple life I loved. But now, I had a secret, a story of the day I pawed at the fabric of reality itself.

And only in Pawsburgh would such a tale find a place to rest. Because, in the end, all dogs just want a bit of mystery with their meaty treats. Right?

The End.