The sun was setting as it often did, nestling itself in the covers of its cot somewhere between Teewinot Mountain and Mount Owen, where it would sleep for the long cold November night. It was no longer visible as it had already pulled cumulous covers over with one final nearly audible “humph” to the world. The only evidence it had existed was the somewhat incandescent glow that emitted through the seemingly endless blanket of fluff.
The man who had been standing in the doorway of his garage watching the sun while it turned about and tucked itself in, shifted his eyes and scanned the changing topography of his back lawn glistening with a mixture of color, reflecting the last glimmers of dusk from the tightly packed snow, which had been increasing in depth as the week progressed. The snow had paused for awhile to let the sun go down and everyone who was interested come outside and experience the splendor. It seemed the man was the only person interested tonight. He knew it would be the last night he could watch the sunset from the West.
Mr. Sun finally decided to call it a day, rolled over and flipped on the night light.
The dog who had been watching the man, watching the descent from the sky, stood up and perked his ears to the man in hope for attention, a bone or possible a ruffle around the collar would do just nicely. If by some chance he had been exceedingly generous, the dog would then press his luck and roll onto its back for a tummy rub as well. Perhaps this would help the digestion of the bone. However, the man remained still and unaware of the dogs efforts.
The dogs name is Peanut. The man used to, and sort of still does, own another dog cleverly named, in its own respect: Butter. The man’s name was Edgar Eiland.
A peanut is an edible nutlike oily seed that grows on a vine and is commonly, though not so much anymore, referred to as a goober. Butter is a soft yellowish emulsion of fat, water and air churned from milk or crème. Peanut Butter is processed by grinding numerous peanuts together and requires no butter in the making of this product. It has the color and consistency of turds, which are produced like a sausage factory by Peanut and Butter’s anal orifice.
Edgar Eiland is the name given to the man by his parents: Edgar, being an English patronymic name meaning “prosperity” and Eiland, a German nickname meaning “banished, miserable and or luckless”. His parents did not take into consideration their son was a contradiction from birth.
The dogs were named by Carol, who is commonly, yet not anymore, referred to as “Edgar’s wife”. She had found them on the outskirts of an Indian reservation. Edgar used to say she was “a keeper”. Oftentimes these stray mutts are called rez-dogs. More oftentimes than not “rez-dog” is what Edgar referred to them as and sometimes, though not oftentimes, he would throw in some rather unpleasant adjectives to preclude their names as they were. Carol did not appreciate this and would call him more foul words than he used towards the dogs, after which she forbade him to use such language.
Both dogs are yellow labs and look like peanut butter, hence the christening, except lately Butter was becoming more of a strawberry jam. Both dogs figuratively act like turds, which was not taken into consideration when the naming commenced but has given excuse for several of Edgar’s adaptations. There were only rumors that Butter was not acting lively.
Edgar was not opposed to yellow labs. Possibly a better name like Tea-Cake or Butter-Scotch would settle with him more but he really quite enjoyed yellow labs. These, however, were rez-dogs. Although they looked much like a yellow lab, inside they were bloody mange, except Butter didn’t have much blood left in her.
Peanut is a male. He is thirty-five pounds and has an anal orifice of five inches in diameter. This is the largest anal orifice seen by the Eiland’s on a dog this proportion.
Butter is a female. She still is sorta, but not functioning. She has an anal orifice of a silver dollar, if one had to give a round-about estimate with a coin. Luckily no one has ever had to do such, it is information I have simply included.
The chance of these dogs being related is highly plausible, considering both were rez-dogs. The chance of these dogs mating was also, at one time, highly possible. The chances of Peanuts anal orifice shrinking to the size of a peanut are nil. The chances of Butter springing back to life from the driveway where she had been for the past month were absolutely none.
Peanut, was now performing a show of tossing dead field mice around in the lawn, in hope of nabbing the attention of Edgar, who continued to ignore him and smoke a cigarette. He was thinking to himself.
“Dogs are easy to please. They live for themselves and communicate through signals misused by humans such as sniffles, snuffs, licking and wagging.”
Peanut changed his act to dragging his large anal orifice across the ground.
Edgar hadn’t noticed and continued thinking to himself.
“The language is silent, for the most part, and seemingly effective. At least to other dogs.” he added as he spun on his heels to face what his dog was doing at the moment. Edgar thought there was more to gain from this, some hidden knowledge within actions.
Peanut was not to be seen. This was a good because if Edgar had looked upon his dog a minute earlier he would have been disgruntled by the corruption of his theory. As it was Peanut had given up on his attempts for attention and gone inside his dog house. When inside he circled twice and with one final “humph” to his owner, lay down for a nap until three o’clock in the Ante Meridian, when the neighbor’s cat would come prowling around.
With nothing further to observe, Edgar decided to dispose of his cigarette and go inside. He really didn’t think about smoking in the house. His wife had forbid him to smoke indoors but she was no longer around. She had left in a fit of rage about a month ago and backed over Butter on her way out, who had been sleeping in the driveway. She made a rather nasty “thump” and left quite a dent that dimpled the bumper in such a way to dislodge the remaining screw holding the license plate into position.
Carol hadn’t noticed until she reached Tulsa and got out to fuel up. A broken collar and set of identification tags ensnared within some cog of the auto and drug over the hundreds of miles traversed were discovered. She really did not know how to feel about the fact. She was confused and leery. She had nothing in mind to heart, except she kept asking herself why the military used "dog tags" and the twin flat metal bones in her hand were "identification tags". She was rather unbalanced as she prepared to leave the gas station and backed into a cow that had meandered to the edge of the parking lot while looking for a patch of cinch grass to graze upon. It made quite a “thump” sound and left quite a dent that crushed parts of the trunk in on itself. Thinking she had run into a plowed snow pile embankment she over compensated her recovery. While looking over her shoulder she engaged the car into drive. The small auto pushed through a wire fence guarding the ditch for the cattle guard. In the accident Carol was hurled from her seat through the windshield then onto the pavement, where she was rescued by the emergency medical team and rushed to the hospital with a concussion, multiple spinal injuries and chronic amnesia.
There were many things that did not occur to Edgar as possibilities now that she was gone. Of course he did not know where she was or how long she had intended on staying there, but then neither did carol for that matter. Until he had heard from her, Edgar played it like she would walk through the door at any given moment. He didn’t do anything she wouldn’t approve of to save face if she walked through the door and caught him in the act of doing whatever it was she would not approve. Also it had not occurred to him to clean up the broken dog that lay fallen like a piece of toast jelly side down. It did not have proper identification and look like any other mutt in the neighbor, well any other mutt that had been hit by a speeding vehicle in a fit of rage. So Edgar thought maybe it belonged to the only kid on the block, Martin, a dysfunctional little cooter. Edgar never contacted Martin to testify his theory, because he couldn’t bring himself to tell a kid, even if he was a twat, his wife has just run down his dog. Instead, he let alone the dead dog laying crippled in the driveway.
Edgar went into his house and prepared himself a cup of coffee. He took down his favorite coffee mug which he had, for lack of a better word, stolen from a hotel during college. He hadn’t actually stolen it or at least consciously stolen it. He had stayed in the hotel for about three weeks while other housing arrangements were being made. Every morning he woke and made himself a pot of coffee which he rank before going to work. It was the only nourishment he would have before dinner and it would last him for the day. All of his money was tied up in the hotel and he was, for lack of a better word, broke.
The first two cups from the four cup pot he made, he would drink with the condiment packets hotels housekeeping had provided the night before. Carelessly dumping all of its contents: sugar, artificial sweetener and creamer into his cup or rather the hotels cup, without stirring it. The other two cups he drank black with whatever puss-like solution remained in the bottom of his cup or rather the hotel’s cup.
At the end of his three week stay he felt the cup was a part of him. It did not have the hotel’s logo on it, like other mugs. Nor did it even appear to be hotel property. On the bottom was the word DAD, all in caps and fancy Old English font. The first “D” was backwards, which gave myth to the mugs origin. Possibly a young child had purchased it for his/her father, who was a business tycoon or some wayward traveler and upon writing the symbolic name of ownership upon the bottom reversed the first “D’ by mistake. However, the writing appeared to be professionally stenciled by the manufacturer. Underneath the word DAD was another word in the same factory print. It read “China”. This solved the myth of the mugs origin.
When Edgar was packing his things to check out, he subconsciously took the mug, wrapped it in a t-shirt and stuck it into the smaller of his two suitcases. Consciously he felt he and his mug had gone through a lot.
Perhaps the mug did belong to a business man or a traveler or a traveling business man, it belonged in the hands of a fellow nomad and at this point in Edgar’s life. That was how he felt. At least if the mug stuck with him it would have proper ownership and an identity. Had it stayed on the hotel nightstand there was no determining its fate. This was a special mug that deserved to get used. It was its purpose and it was free. So was the coffee pot, some of the larger bath towels and the soap but of course those were not as sentimental and had long lived out their purposefulness years ago, much like Edgars wife.
“Ah, my wife,” Edgar reminisced, “perhaps if she thought more like a dog then she would have not spoken so much and needled me about so many things or maybe I would have run her down one day, she’d be out there in the driveway. It would be her body broken, bleeding, frozen in the snow.”
The thought cheered him up and he whistled as he continued to make his cup of coffee. Had his wife brought along personal identification before she left the house, Edgar would have received a phone call about then, informing him of his wife’s fate or near fatal accident in which Edgar, would have continued making his cup of coffee but probably would have lit a cigarette as well.
By now the art of coffee making was firm in his usual routine and he had specific likes and dislikes. For example; he liked two spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee and he disliked the way the second spoonful left a congealed lump of coffee and sugar in his sugar bowl resembling patches of snow around the dog houses. Like smoking in the house or the dead dog in his driveway, that was in fact his, it had never occurred to him to not stir the first spoonful in before adding another.
After drinking his coffee he washed his precious mug and wrapped it in a t-shirt then stuck it into the smaller of his two suitcases. He would need it on his trip in the morning.
He decided two weeks ago, now that his wife was gone and apparently not returning for a while, considering she hadn’t called to inform him of her locale or when she was going to collect her clothes, Edgar was going to take a vacation to someplace he had never been. He was not a frequent vacationer and wouldn’t want to go someplace without a mission of some sort. So he decided to search for the previous owner of his mug, someone named “Dad” in the land of “China”. It seemed like a hopeless cause but he needed something to leave in a note to his wife if by some perhaps she arrived while he was away. He signed his message to his wife:
“Best of Luck,
E.E.”
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