Mort had never realized just how much expression a blind dog could have in his face. Or maybe it wasn’t expression, maybe it was the lack of it. Turning from his perpetually blank computer screen, Mort looked back down at Chico.

“Believe it or not I know exactly how you feel buddy,” Mort said in sympathy. Chico’s ears perked up at hearing his master’s voice but still the dog stood there, bushy tail between his legs, back stiff, looking decidedly less comfortable than in his normal position – curled up in his chair.

Mort patted the pouting canine on the head before forcing himself up. Few things seemed to make him bother to get up these days but apparently guilt still worked as a motivator.

Pulling off his robe and tossing it through the open bedroom door, Mort ran a distracted hand through his hair. He knew that only made it worse, the unruly locks were better left alone. He knew from previous experience that any attempt to tame it resulted in an even more ruffled state.

He did it anyway.

It was just like what he’d done to poor Chico. Poor pooch hadn’t taken a number two in a good four days and it was Mort’s fault.

‘Well why not, I seem to be great at stopping things that used to work just fine.’

He’d run out of dog food almost a week ago but hadn’t worked up the energy to drive to the store and pick more up. Chico had been more than happy to munch on PB and J sandwiches and Doritos. While those things adequately sustained Mort for extended periods of time (‘Amy would disagree with the adequately part,’ his mind chirped) they had resulted in a less than pleasant situation for old Chico. Mort had wandered outside with Chico plenty of times over the past few days only to see the dog strain to no avail.

With a snort of something coming closer to amusement than he’d felt in a long time, Mort decided if he dragged Chico’s chair onto the front porch and watched the dog try unsuccessfully to get it out, they’d have mirrored each other perfectly.

Oh, Mort could hit the bathroom just fine, but how many hours had Chico watched (or tried to from behind clouded lenses) him sit there in front of his blank screen, trying to get something out? In the end, Mort sympathized with the dog completely. He also felt guilty since he had fed Chico people food out of his own laziness.

It had seemed like an okay solution – Chico loved eating something other than his own boring dog food. But Mort knew better, knew it wasn’t a good idea. His mind flashed back to an argument he’d had with Amy a couple years ago:

“Look, is it that big a deal for you to pick up a bottle while you’re out?” he’d asked his wife irritably.

Mort really couldn’t see what the big deal was, why she was so cranky. He wasn’t asking her to do anything difficult and he really didn’t need to hear her bitching at him right now, when he was trying to work.

“You asked me to write up the list, Amy,” he said aloud.

“Mort,” Amy said, her tone clearly reflecting her concern. “I asked you what GROCERIES we needed.”

“And that’s what I wrote!” Mort nearly snapped at her. He snatched the list back from her hand and read it aloud, “Milk, eggs, cereal, Jack Daniels. What’s the problem here? You know I can’t do the shopping when I’m on a roll, we’ve talked about this before.”

“That’s not the problem Mort,” Amy said, looking right at him. The look on her face was one Mort had long since come to recognize as, ‘Hey, figure it out Buddy, it’s obvious.’

And looking back at it now, it was obvious. But then why the hell had she done it? Why had she bought him the Jack if she was really that against it, if it bothered her so much?

‘Well why’d you feed Chico junk when YOU knew better, hmm?’ Mort asked himself. ‘Just because you know better doesn’t mean you do the right thing, does it ol’ Morty?’

No, it certainly didn’t. But Amy swinging by the liquor store on the way home from getting groceries was a hell of a lot easier than it was for Mort to go out these days. And anyway, what difference did it make now? It wasn’t like he had to deal with Amy’s questioning and intruding anymore now was it.

‘You’d probably kill to have her come in and bitch about your drinking NOW wouldn’t you? Of course you don’t drink anymore and there’s no chance of her coming in, now is there?’

Mort sighed, noticing he was still standing at the top of the stairs, same as he had been when he’d got lost in his head. Chico was still standing stiffly beside the desk with that blank look on his face.

Mort headed down the stairs, one hand reflexively trying to straighten his hair and succeeding in worsening the mess.

************
PART 2

As Mort pulled into town his thoughts drifted back to the situation at hand. Driving past the pet store, Mort instead pulled into the town’s sole vet’s office. Feeling rather embarrassed, he explained the problem to the receptionist. It hadn’t helped that she was batting her lashes and smiling at him the whole time. She had all but thrown herself to the floor, legs spread yelling, “Screw me you famous author.” Okay, he had to admit she wasn’t THAT obvious about it, but really, the young lady had not been the most subtle flirter he’d ever met. The flirting had only served to make Mort even more uncomfortable. What was it with these women? He couldn’t even think straight every time they started that shit. As it was, Mort could barely go into the post office anymore.

The vet receptionist, Renada, had wanted him to set an appointment for Chico’s cataract removal that Mort had been putting off for months. He suspected she was less concerned with his dog’s deteriorated eye sight and more interested in staring at the owner.

‘Why do they always look at me like that?’

Leaving the vet’s office with a bottle of Pepto Bismol in hand, Mort hoped Chico wouldn’t get sick anytime soon because he really didn’t want to go back in there.

*************

Mort drove to the little pet shop even though it was only half a block away.

‘For God’s sake, I used to jog every morning!’ Mort recalled. Back when he and Amy were first married they’d always gone for a morning jog. Well, other than the days they’d decided to remain in bed and…

Mort shook his head and huffed softly.

“Good Morning, Mr. Rainey. What can I get for you?”

Mort jumped a little, not noticing he’d already walked into the pet shop.

“Um, hi, Mr…” Mort scrambled to remember the old man’s name but came up blank. ‘Now there’s something new. Oh, wait, it’s not.’

“Truple,” the man supplied, his friendliness having taken an instant nosedive. “Haven’t seen you in here for awhile.”

“Mmm,” Mort said by way of answer. Amy had always done most of Chico’s shopping.

“Haven’t seen Amy either,” Truple said, letting the sentence hang there. Mort knew there was no way the old man hadn’t heard about his separation from Amy, but it seemed like the shop keeper wanted to hear the news straight from the horse’s mouth.
‘Huh, but I’m more of an untalkative ass than a chatty horse these days,’ Mort thought with an internal sneer.

“We’re not together anymore. Amy and I split up,” Mort said, feeling the same harsh pain he did every time he said the words.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that,” said Truple, his words a touch too practiced sounding to be sincere.

“Yeah, thanks,” Mort said quickly, looking away. “Listen, do you know what kind of food Am- uh, Chico eats?”

The stack and stacks of different bags crammed into the tiny store suddenly looked beyond confusing. He’d remembered tossing the empty bag away not a week ago but the name eluded him now. He couldn’t even remember the colour.
‘And the simple things are now beyond my reach.’

Seeing how totally and profoundly lost the man appeared, Mr. Truple gave Mort a long look before going to get the food. Mort noticed something in the man’s eyes and if he didn’t know better he thought it just might be pity.

“In the back. I’ll get you the one Amy always bought for him, I mean the type Chico eats, the one you should buy for him.”

‘Yup, he actually feels badly for making you talk about the break up,’ Mort concluded, listening as the old man nearly stumbled over his words.

Mort looked around while he waited. He looked at the two tanks full of little colourful fish, at the cages of birds. Some part of him wanted to grab the fish and throw them in the lake visible across the street, wanted to open the cage doors and let the birds fly away. Another part of him felt like it was too much effort to bother, maybe even too much effort to take his hands out of his jacket pockets where they limply rested.

He moved along to the cages of little furry animals. A little white bunny cringed in the corner of the cage as he passed by. At the end of the line of cages, in the corner, was a small cage with one very cranky looking rat inside.

‘Maybe Truple’s been feeding him Doritos and sandwiches,’ Mort mused. He leaned forward to get a better look at the animal. The rat just sniffed and took off into its little house, glaring at the intruder from the safety of a tiny cardboard box.

“That’s ol’ Sandy,” Truple explained, suddenly right behind Mort. Mort managed to jump significantly less this time, though he decided it was just wrong how silently the old man moved. “Your little rat wife took off, didn’t she?”

“Excuse me?” Mort asked, before realizing Truple was addressing the rodent, not him.

“Used to use him for breeding. Him and the other rat, but she escaped last week. She must’ve squeezed out a hole chewed in the side of the old cage. Haven’t seen her since. Probably taken up with some alley rat now,” the old man said chuckling, totally oblivious to the way Mort was now frowning.

Mort leaned closer, his nose nearly pressed against the bars.

“You be careful there, Mr. Rainey. He’s been a right bastard ever since she left.”

“You don’t say,” Mort said, staring at the dark eyes that unblinkingly focused on him.

*************
PART 3

Mort drove out of town with several big bags of dog food in the back seat along with the Pepto from the vet’s. The whole excursion had been exhausting and Mort was reminded again of why he avoided leaving the cabin. He felt like he’d run a marathon and gone through final exams and been dumped before the prom. The whole trip had been exhausting.

At least he’d got what he’d needed.

‘And something that you didn’t,’ he added, looking at the cage on the front passenger’s seat. Inside was Sandy the rat, hiding in his box and hanging on for dear life as the Jeep bounced over the bumpy back roads.

Mr. Truple had let Mort have the rat for free, eager to get the no longer friendly animal out of his store. Mort wasn’t sure what had possessed him to take the rat home.
‘That’s right, Mort, the cabin is home now, you’re finally getting that through your thick skull, huh? Oh, by the way, it’s so nice to see you’re identifying with all the animals there Tarzan,’ his internal voice snarked.

Mort turned on the radio to help drown out the sound inside his head. It had never worked before but he thought maybe one of these times the outside sound would be enough to keep things inside quieter.

********

Pulling into the driveway what felt like hours later, Mort got out of the Jeep and shoved the door shut only to remember he had stuff to bring inside.
‘Isn’t it enough that I drove all the way out there and bought it?’ he whined internally.

For one long moment he seriously considered ripping open one of the bags of dog food and leaving the door of the vehicle open for Chico to climb in when he got hungry, but Mort really didn’t want to have to chase out all kinds of wildlife next time he needed to drive somewhere.
‘Great, it’d be an excuse to not drive.’

Reaching inside, Mort hefted one of the big bags onto his shoulder.

“Shit this is heavy. Come carry your own damn food Chico,” Mort grumbled to himself, kicking the Jeep’s door shut.

Mort tottered his way to the screen porch door, the food balanced precariously on his shoulder. It felt like it weighed as much as a person slung over his shoulder.
‘Does that remind you of anything, Morty?’

He remembered the last time he’d tried to open the door with a burden on his shoulder:

It had been just after they’d signed the papers to buy the cabin, him and Amy. They’d driven right over and Mort had insisted on carrying Amy over the threshold.

Laughing Amy had protested, “It’s not like we’re exactly newlyweds Mort! You can put me down anytime now.” Despite her words Mort had felt her tighten her hold around his neck, pull herself closer to his chest.

“Well, if you insist on fighting me…” Mort had said, grinning. He’d quickly maneuvered Amy from a wedding carry into an awkward, but effective, fireman’s carry as he approached the screened porch.

“Mort!” Amy had screamed, from her position slung over Mort’s shoulder, laughing as she kicked her legs futilely.

“Careful there, don’t want to get one of those pointy shoes kicked right through the screen,” Mort had said half in warning, half just to further tease his playfully struggling wife.

“Oh I’ll tell you where these pointy shoes are going to end up, mister,” Amy said. Her tone was threatening but the look on her face gave away her amusement as Mort set her down.

“Really?” Mort said, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he opened the screen door for her. Bowing like a gentleman, Mort held the door open and waited for Amy to go inside.

Slipping past him, Amy made sure to “accidentally” rub her denim clad rear against him.

“Promises, promises,” Mort said, following his wife inside…

Repositioning the bag of dog food Mort fumbled with his keys. The bag felt about a hundred times heavier than Amy had and it wasn’t doing any playful wiggling. Of course it wasn’t going to bed with him either.

Mort made it inside the porch but failed to get the bag through before the swinging door clipped the end of it, ripping and spilling out kibbles.

“Shit!” Mort swore as he tried to right the bag but only succeeded in spilling more bits of food. Hurrying to the cabin door, a wide trail of dog food pouring out behind him, Mort slammed his keys into the handle.

By the time he managed to open the door most of the food was spilled out onto the porch and he was holding a considerably lighter bag.

He tossed the mostly empty bag onto the floor.

“I hope you know I’m not cleaning that up,” Mort said to Chico, though the dog was nowhere in sight. “Better damn well appreciate all this.”

Mort saw the couch beckoning him in all its cuddly, squishy, avoidance filled goodness. Suddenly he could think of nothing else.

‘Just a few more steps,’ he told himself, yanking off his coat and letting it fall to the ground. Mort toed off his shoes as he closed the seemingly never ending distance between him and his target.

And then he stopped cold.

Mort looked down only to find that the warm squishy substance he’d stepped his sock clad foot into wasn’t a stray article of clothing like he’d hoped. Craning his neck around, Mort noted that he had indeed neglected to open the doggy door before leaving for town.

As the horrible smell finally hit his nostrils, Mort concluded that Chico was now over his problem.

**********
PART 4

After cleaning up the mess (and tossing out his socks) Mort finally returned to the couch. He collapsed onto it. Chico was still hiding out somewhere, probably curled up in his favorite chair upstairs.

“Probably nice and comfortable after using the living room as a lavatory. Does this look like grass?” Mort grumbled as he rolled over and tried to get comfortable.

Something was missing. He’d forgotten something but damned if he wasn’t too tired to remember what.
‘Didn’t clean up the food but Chico’ll take care of that. Didn’t bring in the Pepto from the car but looks like we won’t be needing THAT any time soon.’ Rolling over again Mort felt what was missing. ‘Ah, the robe. Just doesn’t feel right to sleep without out it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. People have all kinds of things like that… Yeah, like WIVES!’

Mort smooshed a pillow into a better position. ‘No, not that. I meant like blankets and pillows and stuff like that… Sure, what five year old won’t sleep without his teddy bear? It’s perfectly normal, LINUS!’

Thoroughly exhausted and sick of arguing with himself, Mort finally squirmed his way into a reasonably comfortable position before dropping off to sleep. His last thoughts were the nagging feeling he’d forgotten something other than his robe…

***********

Most of the time sleeping was a perfect escape for Mort Rainey. Lately though, his dreams were becoming increasingly strange. They weren’t what he’d call nightmares (or morningmares or mid-afternoonmares or…) exactly, but they weren’t really enjoyable either. The dreams were not bad enough to keep him from sleeping. He honestly couldn’t imagine anything bad enough in a dream to keep him awake for an extended period of time (or an entire day, which had been his goal for the past two weeks. Just one day without a nap … hadn’t happened.) And really, no matter how bad the dreams got, they never quite rivaled his snow covered, painfully distorted memories of a hotel room of betrayal last winter.

That being said, Mort was not overly thrilled to find himself sitting in his cabin beside a human sized rat. It looked like a fake fur costume over a person but there were no zippers or openings that he could see. Its eyes were huge and black, unblinking.

“So, Mort,” the giant rat began in a conversational tone, “How’re things going?”

“Uh…” Mort began. He looked around. It LOOKED like his cabin but something was off.
‘Yeah, that’d be the huge frickin’ rodent you’re sharing the sofa with pal!’

It wasn’t that though, or not that alone. There was an odd blue tint to everything, like the normally golden sunlight the filtered in through the windows had been replaced by cool blue electrical light.

“Thing’s are going fine,” he said turning back to the enormous rat. He noticed its tail, long and without fur covering it, a skin coloured appendage trailing across the cushions, its end resting on the floor.

“Have you maybe been forgetting things a bit lately?” it asked. There was nothing accusatory in the rodent’s surprisingly deep (‘I thought it’d be squeaky’) voice. If anything, it had the tone Mort had come to recognize in many people’s words directed at him over the past few months – sympathy, though not understanding. He suddenly wanted to kick the furry bastard.

As if the rat had read his thoughts, a long, furry arm came to rest on Mort’s shoulder, pulling him closer as a supportive, close friend might in a time of need. “Mort, I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything. I’m here for you man, really. Maybe you just need to talk about things a bit more, huh? It might help you to discuss this stuff with other people.”

“Other people being giant, talking rodents?” Mort asked, pushing aside a long, thin whisker that had been poking him in the side of the face. He was now fairly convinced this was either a dream or he’d…

“Hey, man, we all have our faults, right?” the rat said as he ran one massive paw along the length of his tail. “Mort, I mean it. Seriously, I think if you started talking more you’d feel better, you wouldn’t get so lost in your head. You might not forget so many things too. What do you say? How ‘bout calling someone up, having a chat?”

The rat leaned forward, pulling Mort’s old rotary phone off the coffee table and dropping it in the confused man’s lap. Mort picked up the receiver thinking he would rather talk to a human person than this oversized pest/therapist anyway. Maybe if he called someone the hallucination would go away.

He drew a blank, he couldn’t think of a single person to call, couldn’t think remember a phone number to save his life. For a change rather than just feeling lost and giving up, Mort got pissed.

“I don’t need you to tell me to do anything,” he snapped, pulling out from underneath the furry arm of rodent reassurance.

The rat shifted to sit sideways on the sofa, facing Mort. Mort glared at him. He was locked into a staring contest with the huge creature. Or, that’s what he thought it felt like anyway. Staring at the black, featureless eyes, Mort quickly realized he wasn’t going to stare down someone who apparently lacked eyelids. He sat back against the couch, looking across the room, crossing his arms and pointedly ignoring the rat.

The rat let out a small sigh of defeat (despite winning Mort’s imaginary staring contest) and got up. He was nearly 6 feet tall at the tips of his ears.

“Okay, Mort. I can see that you don’t want to talk right now. That’s alright.” He walked across the room, his long tail trailing on the floor after him. “I want you to think about what I said, think about who you can call, who you can talk to. It’ll help you feel better, less alone. It might just help you to keep from forgetting things too.” The rat opened the front door and said, “I’ll be waiting in the Jeep,” before closing the door behind himself.

Confused, Mort remained seated on the sofa, the phone forgotten in his lap.

**********
PART 5

Mort awoke with a jerk and remembered what had been nagging him earlier. Pulling on his shoes, he headed out to the Jeep and his forgotten new house guest.

He walked carefully around the spilled dog food on the porch and around the side of his Jeep. It was dark out now and when he opened the passenger’s door, the overhead light came on. He watched Sandy the rat scurry into dark security of the cardboard box. Mort wondered if he’d act the same way if the sky above him opened up and the night was suddenly lit from a surprise, unnatural light source. Considering he barely left his cabin these days, he decided that reaction was a distinct possibility.

Mashing down thoughts of the sky opening above him, Mort cursed his writer’s brain.
‘Month’s of block and NOW you want to give me ideas?’ he snarked inside his mind and he lifted the cage off the seat.

“On the other hand, if you help me get my writing going again, you might just convince me to kick Chico out of his chair and give it to you,” Mort said to the hiding rat.

Making his way again very carefully around the spilled food, Mort decided somebody was going to have to clean that up. Considering Mrs. Carvey wasn’t due in until the day after tomorrow, Mort narrowed down the possible cleaners quickly.

“Chico!” Mort hollered as he stepped back into the cabin, this time leaving the door leading to the porch open behind him. “Get you furry butt down here mister!”

Surprisingly, moments later, Mort heard the squeak and thump that signaled Chico getting off his chair. Mort watched as the canine deftly navigated the unseen stairs.

“Chico, I got you fo-“ Mort began, stopping when his canine’s still fully functional nose led the blind dog right past his master to the trail of spilled dog food.

“You’re welcome,” Mort grumbled. Lumbering up the stairs, caged rat still in hand, he continued, “Why no, faithful companion, it was no trouble at all going 20 fucking miles into the city, braving nosey shop keepers, talking about YOUR lack of bodily actions to fawning ladies. I just LOVE getting out for some fresh air and civilization,” he finished, his tone dripping sarcasm.

Mort set the cage down on the side of his cluttered desk. “And one more thing,” Mort added, raising his voice to carry down to the main level and out onto the porch where he could just make out the sounds of happy munching, “You remember this next time you come looking for Doritos, buddy. Oh you might feel fine now, but just remember how you felt earlier.”

Mort flopped down in his desk chair. Today he’d talked more than the last three weeks combined. His throat actually felt somewhat raw though he’d barely raised his voice.
‘Yeah, talk on the phone, uh-huh,’ he thought in disbelief, remembering the dream.

Looking over at Sandy, he found the critter still hiding in his box, but now Mort could make out the rat’s face at the opening, staring back at him. “If you start telling me to make phone calls I’ll put you out on the porch with Chico,” he threatened before moving to turn on his monitor.

Mort stared at the blank screen.

And stared.

And stared.

He stared until the square of light was visible even when he shut his eyes, burned into his memory. It was a blank square, a blank screen, and it had been blank for months now.

He could feel ideas itching to pour themselves out of his fingertips but somewhere between the creative part of his brain, and the part of actually controlled typing and organization, things got lost. Somewhere deep in his mind was the greatest story he’d never written.

It would have been nice to actually know what it was about though.

And that was what really drove him nuts about the situation: he knew the ideas were in him somewhere. He could feel them trying desperately, attempting to leap out of his brain. The ideas though, he had no clue what they were whatsoever. Even if he’d had an inkling he could have used it, could have written SOMETHING but as it was, no matter how hard he tried, not a damn thing came out. And unlike Chico, Mort couldn’t blame the Doritos.

Mort glanced over at Chico’s chair. He often looked at and spoke to Chico when he got stumped. Truth be known, Chico was just about the only other living soul with whom he had spoken more than a few words in months and it was always a rather one sided conversation at best.

The chair was now empty, Mort could still hear the crunching of kibble drifting through the open space of the cabin, up to his desk. He hoped Chico wouldn’t eat so much that he got sick. Having just cleaned up the not so little “present” in his living room a few hours ago, Mort decided he REALLY didn’t want to deal with anymore of that, he definitely didn’t want his dog to have the opposite problem of the earlier situation.

It reminded Mort of when they’d first brought Chico home as a puppy. Amy had insisted an Australian Cattle dog was the perfect breed for them. After reading a couple books, Mort was considerably less sure…

“But Mort he’s perfect,” Amy said as they sat on the floor of their home. They were sitting with their backs against the sofa, watching the tiny puppy madly romp around and play with his new toys.

“I’m not saying he’s not cute, honey. I’m just saying he needs a lot of exercise. The books say he needs to run-“

“He can go jogging with us every morning,” Amy had said, not seeing the problem.

“Yeah, but what if we don’t always go jogging?”

“What are you talking about? You love jogging.”

“Right now, yeah. But what if we stop doing that?”

“Oooooh,” Amy said, figuring him out. “You mean what if one of these days those mornings we skip and spend ‘in bed’ pays off.” She looked happy he was thinking about that.

It wasn’t what he’d meant at all.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to go without me for awhile then,” Amy said, matter of factly. She grabbed the end of a toy as little Chico tugged at it.

“Yeah, but what if I don’t want to go alone?”

“Mort,” Amy said, her tone changing to reflect the fact that she thought he was obsessing over a moot point. “You ran before you met me and I’m sure if I couldn’t go you’d still do it.”

“But if you’re not there-“ he’d began. Even today, Mort still remembered the end of that unsaid line, “But if you’re not there maybe I wouldn’t have a reason to do it.” But he’d never finished that thought because the little puppy had decided that it was washroom time right then and there on the carpet. The interruption had ended the conversation and Mort had never brought it up again.

It was a good thing Chico was as old as he was now because Mort couldn’t jog to the end of the driveway, let alone around the lake like he’d used to. Hell, lately he was hard pressed to haul his dragging ass off the couch. Sometimes Chico was the only reason he bothered to get up, after all, with the exception of ripped and spilled bags, the dog couldn’t very well feed himself. Maybe it was a good thing he’d let Amy have her way and get Chico. If they’d bought a Basset Hound like he’d wanted, Mort would have been even more depressed when he looked away from his blank screen if he was met with a mournful expression.

At the moment though, there was no Chico in sight so his eyes roamed over to the cage at the edge of his desk. Sandy had his head poking out of the box, staring at Mort. The unblinking look reminded Mort of the enormous rat in his dream and he found himself again staring back. After several minutes Mort lost again.

‘Loser,’ his mind nagged right on cue.

Rubbing his now overly dry eyes, he turned back to his computer screen. After a few moments, Mort could feel an idea coming to the surface, ready to be created. His hands inched toward the keyboard, moving cautiously as though trying not to scare the thought away like a frightened animal. His fingers poised above the keys, ready to take commands from his too long deadened mind.

And then Mort Rainey made a fatal mistake.

Glancing over towards Chico’s chair before beginning, his eyes were drawn to the cage. Sandy was staring at him. Mort looked back at the screen but again his attention shifted to the caged rodent before his first keystroke was made. Two black, unblinking eyes stared at him. Suddenly Mort was acutely aware of his audience.

Chico never stared at him like that. Of course Chico couldn’t really SEE him so that could have something to do with it.

Now caught in another staring match, Mort felt the tip-of-his-fingertips idea being sucked back into the black hole that his brain had become. Looking up at the ceiling, (and losing your third man vs. rat staring match – but who’s counting?) Mort sighed deeply and yanked both hands through his hair.

‘What was that you said about not forgetting things?’ his mind questioned right on cue.

Several minutes later Mort, now wrapped in his tattered robe, made his way back upstairs. He was determined to regain the idea he’d almost been able to know and express earlier. He carried with him the staples of a bag of Doritos and a can of soda. He also had something he’d purchased at the pet store when he’d got Sandy.

Mort dumped his meal on the desk before turning his attention to the cage. He looked down at the metal running wheel in his hands then to the small door on the side of the cage. It was quickly obvious that there was no way he could get the wheel inside without pulling the cage apart. Mr. Truple had warned him that Sandy had began to bite ever since his mate had escaped, so Mort was not eager about handling the unfamiliar animal.

‘Uh huh, cause you need those fingers in tip-top shape for all the typing you’re not going to do, right?’

Determined to fix the situation, Mort decided to dump the contents of the cage (Sandy and all) into his now empty waste paper basket. This was, of course, easier said than done.

After much fumbling, a couple curses and several close calls for his fingers, Mort finally had Sandy in the basket, a copy of one of his own hardbound books over the top to keep the animal contained. Sandy could see out the tiny holes in the wire waste basket and watched Mort’s every move.

After some trouble, Mort got the wheel in and wired it to the side. He was still amazed how even the simplest of tasks were determined to make themselves as difficult as possible for him lately. Or maybe it was his fault, Mort was never really sure anymore.

‘And there’s a situation that’s reminiscent of other things, huh Morty?’

Mort successfully returned his new pet to the cage, dumping wood shavings all over the floor in the process.

‘Oh well, it’ll give Mrs. Carvey something more to clean up,’ Mort decided.

He set the cage back on the desk and plopped back down in his chair. He was more than ready for a nap now – after all he’d probably accomplished more today than the last 4 weeks combined. A nap wouldn’t be unjustified but Mort had the feeling that if he didn’t sit down and get something written his temporary flash of ideas and inspiration of earlier, would be lost forever.

Mort stretched and settled back to wait for Sandy to start running in his wheel. He saw the rat come out of the box and sniff at the new object, touching it with his little paws, giving it a test lick. It looked like he was poised to get running and Mort, satisfied with himself for finally solving a problem successfully, turned his attention back to the screen. Out of the corner of his eye he peeked at Sandy.

The rat had abandoned its investigation of the wheel in favor of watching Mort.

Of all the things that had happened to him today, this bothered Mort the most. He could deal with an ultimately unnecessary trip to town, with the embarrassment of discussing his dog’s bowel movements with an attractive young lady. He could live with the fact that he cleaned up dog shit not three feet from his favorite sleeping place. He could stand that he was sometimes haunted by strange dreams that played like warped versions of ominous warnings. But he could not stand that Sandy the rat choose to play audience to his attempts to write after he’d given the critter a perfectly nice wheel to amuse himself with.

With an audible growl, Mort stood up and roughly grabbed the cage. He stomped down the stairs, stormed through the living room, intent on putting Sandy on the porch so he could get some writing done before he totally lost his idea, the idea he swore was ready to make itself known to him if he could just get some peace and time in front of his computer without a pair of black, unblinking eyes following his every move.

In his haste, Mort was not as careful as he had been earlier. Just outside the doorway he slipped on a stray dog kibble. There was an odd moment during his fall in which Mort noticed that his feel were higher in the air than his head and his robe was flying out around him like some kind of ineffective, backwards parachute.

“SHOOT!” he yelped as he fell, followed by a grunt of pain when his head finally met with the porch ground with a sickening thump. Unfortunately, his head contacted before his shoulders and back and the force was enough that Mort’s vision instantly blacked out. As he quickly lost consciousness he wondered oddly that he had yelled “Shoot!” rather than his customary panic curse response of “Shit!”

*******
PART 6

There was a rushing water type noise in his ears. No, more like a thumping that dragged on and on as if in echo of itself. His last words began floating through his head: a startled voice yelping, “Shoot” followed by a grunting moan of pain. They joined in rushing, thumping noise and the sounds drifted into one another in a continuous sequence.

After some time, Mort finally roused himself enough to feel something, to search out something beyond the repeated sounds in his head. He was laying on something hard and there was some scratchy, fluffy stuff under his right hand. Behind his eyes hurt and the pressure and pain seemed to increase with every throb inside his head. And there was something wet and warm running repeatedly across his cheek.

Slowly opening his eyes, Mort saw the yellow porch light above him, bathing the ceiling with light. Rolling his head carefully to the left, Mort received a big, slightly slobbery lick across his nose. At the movement Chico’s tail started to wag furiously and the dog stepped back a little. Mort blinked a dozen more times before rolling his head back to look at the ceiling.

He hurt.

After laying and blinking, breathing through the pain and confusion for several minutes, Mort sat up slowly. He felt his stomach roll and instinctively brought one hand to his mouth, trying desperately not to hack up his guts. When something tickled his lips he pulled the hand away and looked blearily at it. There was wood shavings stuck to his hand. Suddenly, Mort remembered the cage and dizzily turned his head, upper body swaying as he looked around for the cage.

He now noticed there was wood shavings all over him and around the porch, mixed in with the loose bits of dog food. In his fall, Mort had broken the cage. The wire part of the cage lay at his side and the bottom was a couple feet away. Sandy was nowhere in sight.

“Shit!” Mort swore softly, afraid to use much volume as his head pounded furiously. Chico whined and paced to stand in front of him.

“IssssokayChigo,” Mort slurred, aware that he was swaying a bit where he sat. Not sure whether to try standing up, Mort decided to play it safe and crawled over the wood shavings and loose kibble back into his house. Once back inside, Mort used the door jam to pull himself up. He waited until the spots cleared and he could again see his living room before he let go of the support and staggered to the couch across the room.

Mort collapsed onto the squishy sofa for the first time in months not out of emotional exhaustion and avoidance behaviour, but rather out of actual physical need. Carefully settling his aching back and pounding head against the cushions Mort patted Chico’s head as the dog nuzzled at him.

Chico didn’t stare at him, didn’t watch him drag himself inside after tripping. Chico didn’t have black, unblinking eyes that watched him every second as if to catch the very moment when Mort would next screw up. Chico walked right into, and then around, the coffee table to see if his master was okay.

“Well,” Mort said softly, “you may never run an obstacle course buddy, but you never stare at me, never judge me.” Chico licked his master’s hand, happy he was again making normal Mort sounds. “But you’re a shitty cleaner,” Mort finished, remembering it was dog kibble he’d slipped on.

‘Wonder what happened to Sandy,’ he thought.

Chico yawned and licked his lips.

‘I wonder if Chico … nah, probably couldn’t catch him without seeing him,’ Mort decided. There were enough open areas that a rat could easily squeeze out of the screened porch to freedom.

‘Probably headed back to the city to look for his rat wife. Probably killing whatever shifty rat she ran off and shacked up with,’ Mort decided.

Chico licked his lips again as he laid down beside the couch. Mort wasn’t sure what happened to Sandy. He hoped the little critter hadn’t ended up as his dog’s latest snack. He definitely preferred to assume the rat was off getting his rodent revenge.

End

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