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Dogs of Peace
The dogs of peace rumbled through the valley.
It was, in fact, the valley of the shadow of death. Which was, as befitted the season, pleasant, and not too hazy. Later it promised to be a delightful evening, as the shadows lifted and were replaced with the less cloying darkness of night.
That was the best time to be out and about in the valley, it was said.
Francine didn't think she'd last that long.
It was her stomach, as well as the dogs of peace, that was contributing to the overall rumble-level in the valley. She hadn't eaten for a day, as she'd forgotten dinner last night, it having been a hectic day in the valley. She went to bed, and got up, and though she was quite hungry, she couldn't face eating breakfast, having inherited from her parents a disdain for eating breakfast in the morning. Eschewing the popular view of breakfast as the most important meal of the day, they lived in the commune down at the south end of the valley, where the shadows were especially deep, and people sometimes resorted to extreme philosophies for comfort. They instead fasted most mornings, and really packed in the food during the less popular tea-time meal.
A lot of time, to be honest, the people living in the south end just paid their philosophy lip service, especially the boys, who found they just couldn't make it very far into the day without some kind of eggs and bacon-like combo.
Francine was one of those idealistic, often troubled youth. The thin ones who stuck by the anti-breakfast tendencies their parents taught them.
And she was especially troubled now, her... eighteen hours without food and counting.
"What the heck was she thinking?" she thought. "When they started it all, it had been a game, a simple, harmless child's game. 'See who can stand the longest in the same place.' Well, she was winning, but at a cost. She was very hungry. What good did that do her? None at all."
She could tell she was getting too hungry, she was starting to ramble, even in her thoughts.
And Plato said rambling in the thoughts leads to ... oh, no, she was starting to attribute Platonic-sounding things to Plato that she'd just made up on the fly, that was real trouble.
And what was even more real trouble is that her parents, Bob and Belinda, were the sole local tourism agents for the valley, and they were out and about, trying to drum up support for better public transportation for the valley, so that people wouldn't be forced to make the long trek through on foot any longer, unless they really, really wanted to.
The local paper wasn't so keen on the idea, as public transport, it figured, might cut down on the number of local incidents it could print about people being run over by the dogs of peace, which had been running loose since Farmer John's pen broke last week, loosing them all over the place, making it hazardous to even venture outside. And without dog stampede incidents, they had to admit they didn't have much. It was just an atypically dark valley. Lots of shadow, loads of strange kids, and a couple of odd cultish type communes living at the four corners of the compass of the valley.
A dog of peace stopped to sniff a bush with bluish flowers.
disclaimer:
Farewell to the man in black.
Okay, kids, now, we're taking your calls.
Head on over to the contacts page and choose a topic for next week's Sane issue. Yes, you, too, can change the course of history!
Ehm, and yes, that's right, the contacts page mentions Netscape. Which will tell you how long it's been since we've changed it.
Call us old fashioned. Or lazy. Either one fits. One possibly more than the other.
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