Hey there, just a quick bark from Clover, your philosopher and time-trotting hound. Wrapped up another tail-wagging temporal escapade, saved history from some no-goodniks, and scored vintage turkey treats! Pawsburg’s past and present are safe once more. Time-weaving is ruff work, but someone’s gotta do it. More tales (and tails) to come! 🐾🕰️ – Clover

Listen: Clover here, philosopher, time-traveler, and occasionally, a Boston Terrier with a penchant for turkey and adventure. So today, I embark on a jaunt through time, a dog’s age and back in one afternoon. The skies of Pawsburg wheeled overhead like a carousel of clouds, mocking my terrestrial speed, but I knew secret ways.

The shimmering portal behind The Howling Husky Hardware Store beckoned to me, innocuous to the non-canine observer. If time is a flat circle, then I was about to toss it a good, solid fetch.

I emerged in Newfoundland Nook, but not the Nook as I knew it. There was an air of antiquity, of yore and lore—quaint, cobblestone streets and gaslight lamps. The usual doggie denizens were replaced by costumed companions of yesteryears, their coats groomed in 19th-century finery.

A hankering for turkey led me, nose-first, to a cheerful establishment that hadn’t yet earned the name Rottweiler’s Ribs back in my time, but the scent was unmistakable. “One turkey slice, if you please,” I requested in baroquely articulated yaps that somehow everyone understood.

“Mighty strange pup,” said the proprietor, eyeing me and my timeless tuxedo coat. He forked over the treat, and I savored it with Victorian voracity.

Outside—adventure awaited, or something like it. You see, the past isn’t a place you change; it’s a place that changes you. Excuse me, let’s make that “isn’t supposed to be a place you change.” Because when I saw the unsavory sight of a duo attempting to purloin the portal’s power source, a shimmering gemstone, I knew intervention was in order.

My friends, the ones whose names are a roll call in the imagination, rallied to my side at the sight of my old, beloved frayed rope. Dogs of every cloak and collar lined up: Duchess Dachshund, Count Collie, and Baron Boxer, ready for a game of tug-of-war across time.

“Let slip!” I ordered, and we charged with a gallantry that would inspire painters to capture our rush, if only I would linger long enough for art.

Time was as malleable as playdough in a puppy’s paw, and we reclaimed the portal’s power, its brilliant gleam assuring me that our present would be waiting. I turned back to my motley band, my heart swelling.

“You’ve a place in Pawsburg,” I said. “A future with Barker’s Bakery delights and Paw-lickin’ Pancakes.”

“Aye, a grand adventure it would be,” said Duchess Dachshund through a yawn, “but this is our time. Tend to your own, and we’ll sniff out ours.”

So back home, every frizzy hair in place and not a second missing, I sat by the emerald waves of Emerald Eskimo Estuary, reflecting. Time is a fickle friend and a patient foe, an ocean in which all us dogs paddle, be we in tuxedo coats or fur-lined moccasins.

Our Pawsburg is a town of countless tales, each whisker a chapter, each tail wag a punctuation mark. I speak of it now, as if it were merely a secret shared by those of us with four paws and keen noses for adventure.

Yet know this, dear readers: the magic nestled in the heart of Pawsburg beats in cadence with the pulse of the universe itself, timeless, vast, and waiting to be explored.

And what of sour citrus? Let’s just say I happened upon a lemon cart that day, in old-timey Pawsburg, which I graciously, though wrinkly-nosed, left alone. Some flavors, one realizes, are best left to the soils from whence they came. Now, on to the next chapter, the next leap—certainly, there’s room for a little more turkey, don’t you think?

The End.

Share This Story: