CXXXIV. Angrboða. January 25, 2025
>driving Lyft
>it’s midnight on Apalachee Parkway
>I get called to a bus stop
>the lady on the bench has three suitcases
>and the biggest dog I’ve ever seen
>the second biggest dog I’ve ever seen was named Bella
>She lived with this old lady in DeFuniak Springs who used to feed her tubs of cream cheese and shit like that
>Bella legit weighed 250 pounds
>she was built like a beige El Camino
>slept on her knees like a damn horse
>but she was fat, not dangerous
>Bella could not have hunted down a piece of kibble
>sometimes she had to be helped to her feet
>but this dog?
>this dog could eat me right up like the big bad wolf
>he scrambles into the back seat
>starts gnawing my headrest and slobbering down my seat
>lady says “don’t worry, he’s a service dog”
>bullshit he’s a service dog
>unless that service is devouring French knights at Agincourt
>or wrestling bears for the amusement of Elizabeth I
>this dog is a fucking cryptid
>this dog serves the Nothing
>basketball-headed ass dog
>getting his nasty slurm everywhere
>he looks like Hooch
>if Turner wrote the diaries
>I load the suitcases
>and as soon as I get back in the car dadgum Cujo the Mighty lets loose an alpine horn blast directly in my ear
>I think I’m gone die
>this dog’s fixing to eat my face off
>Lady says “Skip! Skipper! Skippy-dip you leave that nice man alone!”
>she hugs the dog
>can’t get her arms around him
>wipes a bunch of his slurm on her shirt
>I dare not complain
>I dare not
>the lady launches into a breathless Faulknerian diatribe about Skipper the dog
>he is her best friend, she is so glad to be with him again
>she got him back when she lived in Austin but then she came over here for a job
>and then her boyfriend ran off and she lost her job and they tried to take Skipper but she took him away before they did
>he’s been living in the woods with her friend because she was in the hospital for three months
>but her friend has it really set up out there
>he’s got a tent and a minifridge and one of those whatyoucallit little stoves
>and he made sure Skipper got his shots and didn’t get run over
>but now she’s clean and out of the hospital and she’s back with her buddy
>Skipper breathes into my ear the whole time
>I am Sigourney Weaver in that scene from Alien 3
>but his slurm is not acid
>and when I present my hand he sniffs it and doesn’t bite it off
>thus, it is clear I am not his enemy
>now that he is loosed from Gleipnir
>his wrath is only for Odin
>he is Fenrir, the bringer of Ragnarok
>and Hel follows with him