I’ve handled my affairs, as they say.

I cleaned my house from top to bottom, lining everything up perfectly. All the labels on the soup cans are finally symmetrical.

I showered, shaved my legs; did my hair; made my face. I’m as pretty as I still know how to be.

I said goodbye to the cats, who said, “See ya!” with all the disinterest of their birthright.

I cried with the dogs, who cried back while they licked the tears off my face.

Then I walked to the field, opened my umbrella, and closed my eyes.

I’ve had enough. You can stop now.

I raise my umbrella high above my head.

Just take me.

You never asked, but… It’s black Or sometimes pink

You never asked, but… January I’m a new year’s baby

You never asked, but… Australia And dad is from Quebec

You never asked, but… Veterinary Medical Reception One year certificate

You never asked, but… Two dogs, two cats One bunny

You never asked, but… Never been married No kids

You’re never going to ask I know And I sure ain’t offering

And yet, here we are Together Hand in hand

Who is it, I wonder that cares the least, here?

You? Or me?

“Hello?” Oooh, I hope it’s Kirk, ringing to talk dirty to me before bed. I’m horny.

“Baby?” says a voice.

Well, now. If that doesn’t kill my libido. Now, and forever, ever more.

That voice; goosebumps creep over my flesh as memories flood my hippocampus, and emotions surge within me. That voice sounds just like…

“Mum?” I croak out. My libido says goodbye and jumps off a cliff.

“Yes, baby, it’s me,” says the voice of my dead mother.

I pull my mobile away from my face and look at the screen; “1-800-PISS-OFF”, says the caller ID.

Huh. Could be her. Or my father, really.

I put the phone back to my face. What I have to remember here, I tell myself firmly, taking a mature person’s control over the bizarre situation, is that my mum is, in truth and fact, dead. As a dodo. Or, you know, whatever. Dead as something…dead. She’s fricking dead, people. Not down the block at the grocery, calling me for a ride home, or out with her old~lady mates at the male strip club, pinging loonies off the sculpted buttocks of suspiciously~muscled, bronzed old boy toys. Or, indeed, doing any of the other mumsy~type thingummies that mummies do these days. She’s bloody dead, buried in the Queen’s Cemetery, over on 4th street. The big fancy one, thank you very much. You know the one; it has the emergency vet office across the street, where I once took Walker when he ate my favourite panties and I wanted them back. And where that kinda~homeless guy solicits his phenomenal services to innocent people as they try to walk by. You know, that kinda~homeless guy, Leo; the French guy who will redo your hairdo for $10, so you don’t “look like a blind arsehole with no hands that styled his own hair that morning”? I actually let him redo my hair, once, when I was drunk. He did an INCREDIBLE upsweep, with sideswept bangs. Turns out, he used to be a stylist at Chrome, the shit~hot salon downtown, where a cut~and~colour costs more than a purebred Pomeranian puppy. Leo developed a tiny cocaine habit whilst a rising star at Chrome salon and ended up losing his hard~earned chair on the front floor. Oh, and also his flat. And his car. His wife and kid. His boat. His entire life, basically. Anyway, he’s no longer at Chrome, is what I’m trying to tell you. But he does do my foils now, every six weeks, in the single bathroom of the Montgomery Safeway. So things do have a way of working out nicely sometimes.

Back to the present moment, and my mature handling thereof.

“Who is this?” I demand into my phone. It cannot be my mum; not really. I saw the bitch die, for Christ’s sake. And while it may be true that, at the time, in a manner similar to that of my now~backstreet~hair~stylist, I may have been somewhat high, well…I know what I saw.

There is silence at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” I demand again.

“Mitzy,” she says softly, and a shiver runs down my spine. Only my mum calls me that, has ever called me that.

Oh shit fuck, I think, and bile rises in my throat. Is this for real? What do I do? WHAT DO I DO?

For one thing, I guess I should get off her couch, put down her tv remote, and leave her house. Then…then, I’ll think of what I should do.

Well, how about that? God works in mysterious blah blah ad nauseum. Due to a loophole the size of Texas, the democratic process has collapsed under the intense pressure from male punters ~ and now, only female strippers are eligible to run for office!

Which puts me front and centre! As candidate for…um…well, I don’t know. Something. I don’t really care, actually, as long as it includes the cessation of dirty bills being shoved into my g~string. Though, now that I think about it, I’m running for office, for Christ’s sake; let’s be realistic. That shit won’t be ending any time soon; the bills will just be getting a whole lot more valuable.

Oh, and I prolly won’t have to show my tits as often.

I’m not a stickler, though. I’m patriotic as fuck; I’ll show these tits, for Canada, baby. For CANADA.

Or gas money. Holy FUCK. I’d better fix that, first thing in office. Someone remind me. Hey! That reminds me. Do I get an assistant? What? Not, not you. A male one. And hot. I said not you! Beat it, sweetheart; I don’t care how organized you are. If you don’t have a penis, you’re not organized enough. Get lost.

God, it’s hard being President of Canada (is that it’s called…?), with all these minions to shit on. Someone get me a fucking latté. You, sweetheart! Before you go…

About a year after Mummy went nuts, Walker began to sneak out of the house at night.

“Chicks to see,” he explained to me one day, as we lay sprawled and lifeless across the couches, listening to the lilting sounds of Mummy’s oral self-flagellation, echoing up the stairs.

“You?” I snorted. “Bullshit. You wouldn’t know what to do with a female if she ran up and bit you.”

Walker smiled from where he had hung his head upside down over the edge of the couch, showing all his white teeth. “Most of them do just that.”

“You don’t say,” I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t have the energy to move. When had we last been fed? I wondered idly.

Walker, though, didn’t need any food to fuel his excitement that night, as he prepared for his date. Despite my following him from room to room, keeping up a non-stop diatribe of just how stupid I considered my older brother to be, and how Mummy would wake at any hour of the day or night and would no doubt notice his absence from our home that very evening, Walker refused to recant his amorous intentions. As midnight neared, my nagging took on a frantic tone, but I couldn’t reign it in. I continued to follow him and yap out my censure.

Suddenly, Walker turned on me, a growl tearing from his throat as he pinned me to the ground.

“Dezi,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m going. And you are keeping your pampered little mouth shut while I’m gone. Got it?”

My eyes bulged in terror. I unconsciously licked my lips repeatedly and tried to smile my acquittance up at him. He just glared and waited.

“But Mummy is going to wake up and see that you’re gone,” I wailed, and he released me in disgust, before shaking his hair back into place as though nothing rough had just taken place.

“If she comes up the stairs,” Walker called over his arse as he strode purposefully to the front door, “just pretend you can see me. No doubt, she’ll see me, then, too.”

I ran to the window and watched as my idiot brother ran to meet up with a beautiful blonde girl, crouched hidden behind Mummy’s car. I gasped as I recognized her pretty face. It was Zoey! Mummy used to care for her, back when she was healthy, before she lost her mind.

Fucking Zoey, I fumed. She knew our Mummy was sick. What was she doing here?!?

I could tell by the way Walker was tiptoeing around the beautiful blonde that he had no idea who she was. What an idiot, I thought to myself as I watched them through the window. I thought dogs never forget a smell? Well, this one did. The twat.

As they ran off to play in the park together, I sank alone into my dog bed, growling at one of the cats to get her arse out of my bed before I tore out her throat. She didn’t budge, of course, so I crawled in with her and heaved a giant sigh.

“I hope you get caught, Walker, you asshole,” I whispered into the dark living room. The cat rested her head on my shoulder, purring contentedly, and before I could help myself, I was asleep.

I think of Mummy before she was consumed by her illness as being akin to the angel, Lucifer; or at least, as much as I have garnered of him from the Netflix tv show. Mummy was perfect; trustworthy, astute, and so beloved, she was the epicentre of our world. Like Lucifer, she was a wonderful angel; until that day when, like Lucifer, she fell from grace and descended into the bowels of a hell of her own making.

I loved pre-illness Mummy so much, our Before Mummy. Though post-illness Mummy is nothing to sneeze at, I can feel that she is holding herself back from us. She doesn’t give of herself as freely as she once did; we aren’t the epicentre of her world anymore. Every now and again, Mummy will go downstairs and close the door, like she used to do, when she was sick; closing us out and sealing herself in, to be alone. Though Walker and I both scratch desperately at the door, she won’t let us in. She tells us to stop scratching the door, to go upstairs and to leave her alone.

She never used to be this way. We were never apart, in the Before Times. We went every with Before Mummy, spending every moment with her, trailing behind her even when she went to the bathroom. But After Mummy shuts us out, both physically, through that goddamn basement door, and emotionally, when she has simply had more than she can take for one day and the shutters slam shut over her eyes.

I wonder what it was, exactly, that killed the angel that was our Before Mummy?

Throughout the worst of Mummy’s illness, when Walker and I felt the most stress and suffered the most loneliness, there was one particularly bad day where my own mental health was also rather questionable. The isolation that day was crippling; Mummy, while physically so close to us, a few below us, encased in her basement tomb, was emotionally more far removed than ever. Walker, too, was too busy sulking to help support me in my distress. I felt horribly alone. I yearned for Mummy, aching to see that damned basement door finally swing open and spit out our mother. I didn’t care what shape she was in, either; I would take whatever I could get. I just wanted my mummy.

But the door remained firmly closed, hour after long, unendurable hour, and the stress of worrying about her coupled with the pain of missing her was simply overwhelming. While Walker sat tucked into himself on the couch, refusing to engage with anyone, I finally reached a point where I just snapped.

I couldn’t take anymore. Someone had to love me; I was a Pomeranian, damnit! I needed love and cuddles in the same way I needed oxygen and water! I watched with anxious eyes as a spider scurried across the laminate flooring, trying to escape the notice of the cats, and before I could stop and think it through, I had jumped up from my dog bed and thrown myself into its path.

“Hi!” I panted into the spider’s startled face. “I’m Dezi, the pampered Pomeranian. Who are you?”

The spider cringed away from me, obviously distrustful, and turned quickly to scurry off in another direction. I quickly pounced on the spot directly in its path once again, halting it in its tracks. I stared at him expectantly, grinning madly.

“Erm….g’day,” he said, still looking at me suspiciously. “How’re you going?”

I cocked my head to one side. “That’s funny. Why do you sound like my Oma?”

He cocked his head in return. “Your Oma?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She talks funny, too. Just like you do.”

“Oh,” the spider’s face cleared with understanding, it’s many eyes all focusing on me. “You must mean my accent.”

I nodded vigorously, though I actually had no idea what he’d just said.

“Is your Oma from Australia?” the spider asked, and I jumped with excitement at the familiar sound.

“Yes! Yes, that’s her homeland,” I barked and turned around twice with excitement.

“Well, I am also from Australia,” said the spider, and I cocked my head again. As though reading my mind, the spider smiled and said, “I climbed into your Mummy’s suitcase the last time she was there. Wanted to see the world; you know how it is.”

Again, I nodded enthusiastically, though I didn’t know any such thing. All I wanted was for my Mummy to be herself again. But then, what did I know?

“Do you want to be my pet?” I blurted out suddenly, and the spider scuttled back on all eight legs in surprise.

“I~I’m sorry?” He asked, two legs coming to his chest as though to keep his insides from bursting through.

“My pet,” I repeated, and I could feel that I was staring too hard, but I couldn’t help myself. I was so lonely. Someone had to play with me, had to admire me, had to adore me, and had to do so soon, or I was going to expire.

The spider eased back a little further, drumming his legs distractedly against his chest. I continued to pant and stare down at him.

“Ummm….” he said, softly creeping backwards again as I began to step towards him.

“I think I need a pet,” I explained hastily, still advancing towards him. “I’m so lonely. Mummy won’t come out of the basement and I’m just so sad and lonely.”

The spider stopped backing away, and all his eyes turned to look me over, the look of suspicion gone. Suddenly, he nodded, and smiled up at me.

“I’ve been there, too,” he told me. He reached out a couple of legs and held them out to me. “Come on, Little Puppy. How about watching some tv with your new pet?”

What did it feel like, watching Mummy go crazy? Well, it was certainly no trip to the dog park, I can tell you that. Well, wait a minute, actually…I guess you could say it’s kind of been like a trip to that really shitty dog park. You know, the one that Walker and I absolutely hate? Yes, you do; the really small one, just down the street, where Mummy won’t let us off leash because all the other dogs are total dicks. That one. I guess you could say it has sometimes been like a trip to that shit hole; for example, all those times that Mummy also acted like a total dick.

It’s hard to say who took it harder, myself or Walker. Me, I am the pretty one; the princess. People do whatever I want them to, because I am so fucking adorable, they can’t help themselves. It’s just this power that I have over people; the power to get whatever I want. Say you have something that I want; I just stand up my hind legs and put my tiny nose right in your face, so you’re forced to look into my eyes. Then I squish my eyebrows together like I’m looking for the answer to the meaning of life, and I let my lower lip pout out a little, and BAM! Your ice cream is mine. Not to mention your wallet.

This ability worked better on Mummy than it did on any other, once. I could get her to hand over piece after piece of buttery popcorn, or a steaming hot chunk of sweet potato; I even got her to give up her entire slice of gooey, cheesey pizza, once.

Then, one day, she came upstairs, and she was gone. I could tell by her eyes; instead of seeing love for us, like I usually saw there, I saw…nothing. There was nothing at all there. Seriously, it was like her eyes were a downtown Calgary nightclub after its first three months of being open ~ there was literally nobody there.

Little did I know, that scenario would come to be the best of all Shit Scenarios available to us; it would become our preference, sadly, to have Mummy just not be at home.

Because we didn’t like any of the other options on offer. Some of the time, she was angry, without reason. Then she would be suddenly without the energy to move or even awaken, for days on end. Worse still was when Mummy would cry. A lot. The smallest thing would go wrong and she would sink to the floor sobbing, mewling out the kind of helpless agony that Walker cried out, on the day he finally understood that he’d been castrated, three weeks earlier.

She frightened us, on days like these; Walker and I would tiptoe around the rocking human Mummy~ball on the floor, uncertain what to do. Walker, all due credit to him, would venture forth and give her arm or hand a tentative lick, as though to let her know we were still there. I was too frightened to do anything more than stand there and stare. Though I did also occasionally chase the cat down, so I could bark at him. I knew this was a much better way of helping Mummy than just licking her goddamn hand. God, Walker, can be such a prat sometimes.

It took a long time, but eventually, I was proven correct, and Mummy did get better. (So suck it, Walker, you dumb, thinks~licking~solves~everything Papillon). I sincerely hope we don’t have to repeat that hell, ever again.

Incidentally, if you’re interested? We have no wish to revisit that shitty dog park down the street again, either.

“Did you paint something today?”

I jumped at the question, the unexpected voice of a man breaking into my far-off thoughts. I looked up and squinted into the amused eyes of a dark-haired gentleman in a black suit jacket.

“Excuse me?” I snapped, not feeling at all sociable at the moment.

“I asked you if you had painted something today,” he repeated, continuing to smile down at me, which continued to irritate me. When I refused to answer, the stranger gestured at my clothing with the long, tapered fingers of a pianist. “You’re covered in paint,” he explained slowly, as though I were a dull-witted puppy who had just run smack into the back end of the living sofa. With my face.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then quickly took stock of the gentleman before me. Good-looking, confident, and cheeky, if his grin and dancing brows were anything to go by. I raised my own brows questioningly as I turned up my face to him. “Are you lost, sir?” I asked politely.

He laughed, and my temper simmered. Had I a sign strung round my neck, inviting strange men to hit on me all day? “There is an information desk at the entrance to the library,” I elucidated. “You would have walked right past it as you came in; you know, en route to prey upon lil ol’ me.” I batted my eyelashes up at him innocently, but he just laughed again, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets and rocking back onto his heels.

“I quite like your snark,” he announced happily, and several other library patrons looked up at us with interest.

I shrank back into my seat and buried my hot cheeks behind my hand. “How lovely for you,” I muttered.

“Tell me your name, darling, before you burst into flame behind your hand, there,” he leaned forward and tried to see my eyes, hidden as they were behind my fingers.

“You’re the devil,” I hissed, my cheeks stinging with heat.

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” he agreed cheerfully, and handed me his card.

I lowered my hands from my face slowly, taking him in. I glanced at his card, which indeed read, The Devil; At Your Service. Then I stood, gathered my belongings, and went directly home, where I immediately converted my library card to an online account.

18+

“I think I just met the happiest person in the world,” I said as I walked into the kitchen, balancing a tower of boxes in my arms. “She was all smiles and bubbles as she offered to help me get all of the boxes up the stairs. And as I glared back at her suspiciously whilst trying heroically not to vomit onto her shoes, I asked her, ‘What are you so happy about?!? Are you high?’ And she actually said the phrase, ‘I’m high on life’. Like, out loud. Near other people. So they could HEAR HER. I nearly tackled her in a citizen’s arrest right then.”

Klint looked up as I came into the kitchen and quickly shoved himself away from the counter, reaching out to grab the top two cardboard boxes I was balancing as they began their sidelong descent towards the shining linoleum floor. “So?” he queried, looking at the labels on the boxes with a frown. He seemed to be paying little, if any, regard to my exciting tales of his new neighbours.

“So?” I echoed disbelievingly. Did he want the tea on the cell mates of his new block tower or not? “So I’m having her disemboweled in an hour and making Snausages from her remains for my doggies. Want some?” I jerked my head at his two dogs, wrestling loudly in the living room. Then I heaved the remaining boxes in the general direction of his kitchen counter, before following them a moment later with my arse so I could rest my weary legs. Not to mention my weary arse.

“Yeah, sure,” he murmured, turning back to the sink and looking down at his phone once again.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” I demanded. What I actually thought was, “Who is she?”, but I was too smart to drop myself into THAT pile of poo and sputum, thank you very much.

Well. Not anymore.

“Nothing,” he said irritably, switching his screen off and sliding his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.

Definitely a chick, I smirked to myself, hopping down from the counter and sashaying past him, putting an excessive, totally superfluous flounce into my step, hoping to jiggle my cleavage and pull his attention my way for a moment. When he still failed to glance up and become entranced by my boobage, I screwed up my resolve and gave it one last attempt, calling upon my final reserves of subtle, understated elegance. I turned to face him and, clearing my throat loudly, pulled my camisole top up over my head and flashed him my naked breasts.

From the other side of the wall of black fabric and lace, I heard him clear his own throat. “Uh...Kage?”

“Yes?”

A pause. Prolly considering his words carefully, having, you know, met me before. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to refocus your attention my way,” I explained through my shirt with exaggerated patience.

“Huh,” the dark outline of his head nodded. “And why’s that?”

I yanked my top back into place and turned on my heel, flouncing out of the kitchen with an unnecessary swirling of my hips. “Because I’m your friend, not some temporary Ho-bag you’re boning, and I’d appreciate it if you’d pay attention to me while we’re together, rather than to your goddamn phone. Chase pussy on your time, you asshole. “

As I slammed the door closed behind me, I heard him call to his dogs in the living room. “Now boys, if I’m not mistaken, out that door just walked the second happiest person in the world. High on life, that one.”

And when I returned to the flat with the next load of boxes, I briefly considered vomiting into his shoes.