Hey Mom,

Pawsburg is a ghost town and I’m the last pooch standing. Spent my day walking memory lane and being a bonafide Beggin’ Strip king in the silence. Miss you and the fam. Can’t wait to bark all about it when you’re back. 🐾

Tail wags and doggy kisses,
Tuffy-Bear 🐕💔

I woke to the peculiar absence of noise that only occurs when things are irrevocably skewed. No reassuring hum of the refrigerator, bereft of its vigilant guardian duties. No gentle snoring from Lola-Jean, nor the whispered dreams of Abby-Jean. Even the distant, melodic bark of Bella was notably absent. It was as if the world had exhaled its last breath and forgotten to inhale anew.

I rolled off my bed and trotted to the window. The morning sun was a baleful eye glaring over a world transformed. Where once stood the quaint cottages of my neighbors, only the skeletal remains persisted, poking through a thick cloak of ivy and moss like the bones of some great beast. Bichon Boulevard was crumbled and overgrown, the once pristine path to Wagging Whisk where Mommy and I would dine on Sundays.

Be it some manner of jest or a dream unshaken from the dregs of sleep, I stood alone as the last citizen of Pawsburg. My paws sank into the ashes of Malamute Mountain as I wandered through the forgotten streets.

Alone, save for the wind’s somber dirge, I entered Pawprint Pizzeria, where now vines crept like silent thieves claiming their dominion over ovens cold and disused. Yet, my canine heart beat on, steadfast, alive with memories of days less grey.

At Jade Jack Russell Junction, I found my stuffed squeaky—a relic of a bygone era—half-buried under a lilac bush that had sprouted violently through the pavement. “Ah,” I sighed as I nudged it with my nose, “what times we had, you and I.”

As I paced through the overgrown corridors of my kingdom decayed, I reflected upon a life once lived under less peculiar circumstances. “Thurber might say,” I muttered to myself, “‘The wit of a canine is an eloquence lost to the indifference of time.’ Or he might not have said anything of the sort; he was not, after all, a dog.”

Resigned to my solitude, my days stretched ahead unhindered by appointment or agenda. I turned my gaze homeward, to that pinnacle of domestic mundanity, Happy Hounds Dog Walking, now a temple overthrown by nature’s unyielding will. There, the leashes hung like the faded memories of my time spent tethered to joyous routine.

At The Dapper Dog Salon, mirrors cracked and fogged offered no reflection; only a question lingered, fragile in the stillness—what becomes of beauty when there are no eyes to behold it? With my civilization in the clutches of ruin, Canine Couture Clothing displayed the latest fashions for none but ghosts.

Despite this post-apocalyptic stillness, my belly yearned for sustenance. Paw-lickin’ Pancakes, once a bustling eatery, promised a feast even amidst the hush of desolation. I padded inside, hopeful. Rummaging through the detritus, I unearthed a dusty packet of Beggin’ Strips, sealed and forgotten. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” or so the adage goes. Truly, it was a feast for a king of nothing.

With my hunger briefly abated, I returned to my sand kingdom. I dug for treasures that would never be found and chased shadows on a beach sinking beneath the weight of the relentless tides.

Yes, life in Pawsburg had ebbed, but I remained, steadfast Tuffy-Bear—connoisseur of the quiet, guardian of remembrance. Bella, Abby-Jean, Lola-Jean…the names echo like a mantra, the syllables a liturgy against the silence.

I lay in the once verdant park, now a patchwork of memories and wilderness, and looked up to the infinite. Words of Thurber whispered through my thoughts, “Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”

Perhaps tonight, my dear humans will return, from slumber, from work, from out of town. Then, I will regale them by firelight with tales of Pawsburg’s glory days, its twilight, and the noble resilience of one small dog named Tuffy-Bear, playing amidst the ruins.

The End.

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