Welcome home
“Good boy!”, he said patting his dog while opening the door to his home for the final time that night. Later, he would remark on how brisk the weather had become with a simple crossing of an equinox.
“You really love your dog don’t you?”, said the man sitting in his arm chair, with the lights turned off, with the shotgun in his lap.
“Yes. I do.”
“Well then. Guess I won’t be killing you tonight”, he matter-of-factly stated while simultaneously slapping his knees and rising from the chair. The same way grandma would do it when she needed the tube flipped to Wheel of Fortune for the evening; “Well then. Time for some spins.”
“That seems awfully generous of you”, he said closing the door as the quite superiorly statured man gracefully walked by, then out the door, then down the newly replaced steps. Six creaks and clunks and like that, he was gone.
“Yes. It is.”
“No hard feelings I hope.”
“Wow. Now that was surreal”, said the oversized gopher, sitting at his dining room table, playing solitaire.
“Yeah. Thanks for the heads up, and for letting that dude in, and for keeping the lights turned off. How the hell are you playing solitaire with the lights off anyways?”
“Why are you talking to a gopher? These questions kind of just answer themselves.”
“Touchè, pussycat. So, did you guys talk at all or did you just keep it weird and creepy like an old-timey, silent porno?”
“Oh yeah, it was non-stop action with Frankenfuck. He’s got a thing for animals. The gun, the big military boots, and the bowl haircut really did it for me. You need to grow up!”
“Yeah.” Awkward pause. “So really, you got any thoughts on our guest?”
“Nope. This is your trip, man.”
“But, I’m not tripping.”
“Well … you should be. It would explain that break in narration there. It would also make what’s going to happen next a whoooole lot more explainable.” And it really would have explained the rest of Gopher’s gopher friends coming over with more than enough gin and olives for dirty martinis while they all played strip solitaire well into the morning.
What’s more disturbing: drunken, life-sized gophers playing solitaire or naked, androgynous gophers squealing, standing on chairs, and twirling clothes in the air like cowbois while making the herky-jerky bull riding motion? He didn’t have the heart - or words - to explain to them how solitaire could not be played with teams.
He put the leash back on the dog and went for a car ride instead.
