Chapter 13

Leopold was presently attempting to avoid one of the most obvious questions of existence. How delicate was Sam, at her advanced age? Oh sure, that question applied to any life, but it took on new prominence when the subject of advanced age was breeched. The paradox of growing old to the same physical helplessness as when growing up from infancy proved the answer: control was an illusion. At any rate, that was the message of a film Leopold enjoyed, and he decided the same applied here, even if the context was different. He didn’t like to thin about it until something brought the subject up, but even then he was satisfied he wasn’t afraid of the implication. He watched Sam walk on ahead of him, and considered mortality.

You don’t have to be old to die, Sam retorted, and she sounded offended at the notion. Everything is inevitable. My bones will break, my eyes will roll, my tongue will slacken, yes my paws will dangle above me. But that would all happen even if I was ten years younger. Get over yourself, and quit lagging behind.

Deep in the woods now, so that Leopold had lost all sense of location, they trampled. This was not something he was unfamiliar with, since he had often taken Freckles for walks down ATV trails. He wondered what it must have been like, to create such trails, and he thought it should be very much like this, only now when someone traveled these paths it was in an all-terrain blur. The destination was no longer important so much as the thrill of the hyper-experience. He had never known that thrill, but knew the sensation of being lost, which was probably just the same, the frantic trampling thru brush to try and resituate himself. He’d done that, sometimes by himself and sometimes with Freckles. He had that sensation now, but he had a guide, and he assumed Sam knew her way around. Still, it wasn’t much comfort, since Leopold had no idea where they were going. The destination was a comfort, he realized, and maybe he had a form of claustrophobia.

You’re wandering around in that mind a lot, Sam observed. Tread carefully.

Leopold did not much care for that attitude. “You know--” he began.

Yes, I do, she retorted.

“So you can read minds,” Leopold said. “Pliny probably would have caught on to that already. He would have had a few choice words for you, too, and probably some for your parentage.”

Pliny isn’t your friend, Sam said, and you’ve come to that realization before. Try to keep up, in both senses.

“Wait a minute,” Leopold said. “You’re right. Who the heck is Pliny anyway? And why would I have, heck how could I have invoked him out of the blue like that?”

Give it some thought, Sam said. And remember, we have patience to fall back on. What about you?

“I don’t know anyone who ever went by that name,” Leopold said. “None of my friends, none of my relatives, ever mentioned anyone like that. There’s an historic figure or two, but I’m not really that familiar with them. I think they were Roman. Philosophers of some kind, maybe, but then again everyone but the rulers, and even some of those, seemed to be. I guess the reality stars of the day. Maybe Pliny is a clue? Maybe the name is supposed to mean something?

“Come on, help me here! You mutt! I didn’t really mean that. I guess I say things like that, and maybe I don’t really mean it, and maybe I sort of do, because it’s easy to do that sort of thing. Heck, there’s not exactly a canine civil servant, is there? There’re people out there who’ve gone the extreme the other way, PETA and Vegans and whatnot. I guess that’s how we do things, to extremes. Well, maybe not everyone. I really wish you’d help me here. You make me sound like an idiot.

“Which is what I suppose I am, I mean you did pick me to receive some spectacular message about animals, right? There’re two types of people who get those things: those who need it and those who are asking for it, and the second group is sort of like the first. Basically these things turn out to reveal us humans as the barbarians we try to convince ourselves we’re not. Which makes me…so proud…to have been chosen. I can barely contain my excitement. Really! I’m the bad guy here, give me my comeuppance!

“Okay, now I’m just making a farce out of this, I’m rambling, and I’m not thinking about what I’m supposed to be thinking about, am I? Give us the power to think, and we stray, is that the message? But then again, I seem to have stumbled on the fact that humans are not alone in the thought department, which throws a whole volume of, uh, human thought away. Animals act of instinct! They, y’know, don’t have a soul!

“I’m still digressing. Well, you’re still not helping! Why did I conjure this Pliny guy? Why? Why? Why do bananas fly? Why do bananas fly in the clear blue sky? This is being so helpful…

“Help me out.

“Help me out. Please help me out. Give me a clue. Something that would push me in the right direction. Give me a starting point. Give me a swig of water, I’m dying of thirst.”

I promise you you won’t, Sam said.

“Okay, sure,” Leopold said, and the trampling through the woods was not helping his frustration. “You’ll respond to that. Very helpful, very encouraging. Thank you very much. I’m sure glad we know there’s an astronaut who shares my…affliction. Yah, I said it. It’s an affliction. I could just die of thirst, even though you’ve said otherwise. Putting aside the fact that I can hear the thoughts of assorted dogs and cats, what’s to say they all aren’t lying to me, misleading me, leading me into a trap? Who says this…gift isn’t one of those curses? That’s a popular story device for a reason. And it’s not just paranoia.

“I’m doomed. What a lovely thought. I could die, of thirst, right now, happy. I’ve deciphered the reason, my fate. I’ve answered one of the most important questions of existence. I suppose I should be happy about that, too. Not everyone realizes this. Oh sure, that’s sometimes a good thing, not knowing how you’re going to die. It makes things relatively painless. I get to enjoy my pain. I guess some people get off on that. Maybe I could. Yah, I guess I could.

“Lead on, o Death. Lead me to my doom.”

Knock it off, Sam said. Cool your britches and start talking sense again.

“It’s hard to do that,” Leopold said, “when you’ve lost control.”

Convince yourself that you’re a chicken, Sam said. That would be more entertaining. Go ahead. She stopped momentarily, to emphasize her sarcasm.

“Okay, I get it,” Leopold said.

You’d better have, she said. Her tail never wagged.

“With great power comes great opportunity to be an ass,” Leopold said. “I guess I should apologize for the correlation with the donkey.”

Only words, Sam said.

“Okay,” Leopold said. “Thank god you have patience.”

Oh, we developed that on our own, Sam said.

“These answers I’m going to find,” Leopold said, before correcting himself, “These answers that are finding me, I guess, I’m glad about them. I really am. Okay, now I’m just sounding selfish.

You’re sounding like someone who doesn’t know what to expect, Sam said. You sound perfectly normal. Get on with your puzzling.

“Sure,” Leopold said. “Fine, I can do that. I won’t try to get answers from you, get any clues. I can do this. Pliny has to be someone, a real person. I already ruled out people I know, but maybe I shouldn’t have. I sort of know the astronaut, but I don’t, really, this Oswald I used to think of in such different terms. Pliny. Pliny was his companion. His friend. Pliny was Oswald’s friend. They spent nine months or whatever in the space station together. Damnit, I can’t even claim this victory for myself. You helped me, even if you didn’t really.”

Cheer up already, Sam urged. And quit moping.

“You try that,” Leopold said. “It’s not as if you’re the most cheerful thing in these woods. Don’t believe me listen to the bird chatter.”

I do, thank you, Sam said.

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave it at that,” Leopold said.

Yes, Sam said.

“Well, thank you very much,” Leopold said. “I’ve bent pretty far these past twenty minutes or so, and all I get back is a grudging dismissal from you. That’s rude, no matter what species you are.”

Get over yourself, Sam said.

“I’d love to, but that’s what humans do,” Leopold said. “Our defining aspect is our ego, and we’re damn proud of it, even if some of us try to create scenarios where there is no self. Imagine that. How can you experience something without being there?

“Wait a minute. This isn’t a religious experience, is it? Am I going to meet my maker?”

You aren’t going to die, you aren’t going to have a mystical experience, Sam insisted.

“Okay, then,” Leopold said. “I guess I’ll just have to keep an open mind.”

Try to keep that in your mind for a few minutes, she said.

Leopold was by nature impatient. After a few minutes of silence, which he was sure Sam enjoyed, he said, “Are we there yet?” He tried to understand what he was supposed to understand, but his impatience got the best of him, and as soon as he realized that, he realized he was continuing to miss the point. He couldn’t concentrate long enough to work with whatever this journey was headed toward, but he did realize that by realizing this, he was making enough progress. That must be why he had been chosen, what Boo had tried to explain to him. He had enough patience within his impatience. Armed with the thought that he must have a psychic bond with the astronaut Oswald, he became aware that there was another presence rattling around up there as well, and that he had already invoked it, just as he had invoked the astronaut. Sam might be insisting that this was not a mystical journey, but in his experience there were already elements of it there, and there was plenty of reflection being done in his experience.

Leopold would have enjoyed a little less inevitability.