Wednesday 31 October 2012

"Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzz!!!"

Ewan's excited bark echoed around the yard and the woods beyond, sending startled crows from the nearby rookery flying up in a great dark mass, all cawing indignantly at the disturbance.

"Jazz! Jazzy Jazz! Jaaaaazzzzzzzzzzz!  Is it really you?!?"

I grinned, my tail wagging madly, as my friend Ewan capered joyfully around me.

"Oh, Jazz!" he squealed, with tears pouring from his big brown eyes, "Fizzy said you had gone for always, but I KNEW you would come back again!  Where did you go?"

I was stumped.  How could I break his sweet, innocent, trusting heart?

"I searched for you for three WHOLE months." continued Ewan in a quiet, more subdued, bark.  "I know you was very ill and everything, and when Fizzy told me I had to say goodbye to you that time and mean it properly and all... But I wanted you to come back.  WHY didn't you come back?  Every day for three months I looked and waited for you, and I cried every single day.  Where was you?  I don't understand.  Don't you want me to be your friend any more?  OK, that's OK.  But I is very, very sorry for whatever I did or barked that made you go away.  Please don't stop being my friend.  Please - "

This was heartbreaking; more than I could endure.

"Oh, Ewan." I sighed, sadly.  "Please believe me, I would have done anything - anything - to stay here with you.  And Fizzy, and my partner, and my family, and my other friends like dear Lance.  I tried so hard.  But I was too ill.  And so I HAD to go away.  I am here again now - I am not completely sure why - but I am here.  And wherever, or whatever, I now am - I will ALWAYS be your friend."

"But you IS dead, isn't you."  said Ewan.  It wasn't a question.  "You is all see-through and everything, and you has no smell.  Fizzy said you was dead.  Can I really still be your friend?"

"Oh Ewan," I sighed again.  "You will ALWAYS be my friend.  No matter what.  OK?"

Ewan visibly relaxed.  He wagged his tail again.
"Phew!" he panted. "I don't mind then, if you is still here to talk to me sometimes, even if you is dead.  I don't mind ANYTHING if you are still my friend."

I grinned at him.  Ewan might well still continue to be the most simple dog of this lifetime - but you couldn't deny that he had the most loving nature of any worldly creature.

For those unacquainted with the tall, awkward, gangly-limbed dog, allow me to effect an introduction.

Ewan with his belovèd football

Ewan is a dog, older than me; a dog who is loved but who has something missing in his head.  Whether he was born this way, suffered a difficult oxygen-deprived birth, or some kind of drastic head-trauma in his youth we shall never know.  He is at once both exasperating and adorable.  And he has an extremely odd but all-consuming obsession with cheese.  Don't ask....

Some examples from this blog:

1) I attempt to explain to Ewan the mysteries of female ovulation.  It doesn't end well: http://jasper-thedogsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/monday-10-november-2008.html;

2) Ewan believes he has a fatal tumour, oozing toxic pus.  The "lump/tumour" turns out to be his penis.  And the pus?  That's him going to the toilet: http://jasper-thedogsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/thursday-21-august-2008.html;

3) Ewan explains that 25 December, Christmas Day, is a day on which most of the world's population join together to celebrate the birth of Our Saviour, who will one day come amongst us again, riding a Holy Jacobs Cream Cracker to bring Peace on Earth - The Baby Cheesus: http://jasper-thedogsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/thursday-25-november-2010.html.

There are other examples, many and varied.  All are recorded here, on this blog.  Seek them out if you dare.

Having barked all this, however, I ought also to point out that Ewan is totally inoffensive.  I have often wished to batter him to within an inch of his life when he has been wittering on for ages about his latest mad theory.  But it is impossible to dislike him.  He has the most selfless and loving heart and would readily give up his very last morsel of food in the world in order to nourish a less-fortunate and hungry creature.  He is determined to try his best in all he does, and only the most churlish of individuals would dismiss him as a mere, insubstantial, fool.


As I was musing upon all these points, Ewan suddenly piped up once more.  "Jazz!" he yipped, "It's Hallowe'en today!  Is that why you're back?  Is it?  Is it?!"
"Actually, I've been 'back' for a while and-"
"Can you see in my head, Jazz?  Can you?  Can you see what I am thinking?!  Ohhhh!!!  Can you tell what will happen to me?! Can you tell my fortune?!"

"What?!"

"That's what they can do, you know!" insisted the excited dog. "They can tell your happenings in the star and the sky!!"

"No, Ewan.  NO-ONE can tell that.  When you are dead, you are dead.  No-one can read your thoughts and no-one can predict what is going to happen to you or what choices you should make based upon the movements of random dying suns billions of miles away.  Got that?"

"Yes Jasper."
"Good."

I breathed a small sigh of relief.  The relief, inevitably, was short-lived.  After a brief moment of respite:
"Ja-azz...?"
"Yes?"
"Is there cheese in Heaven...?"

At this point the conversation took a downward - and decidedly awkward - spiral into the realms of dairy-product-based insanity.

To be revealed next time.  Even I need to go and have a lie-down now....