The Definitive End

"This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper."

I hope it did not. I hope the world ended quietly, with, not a bang, but silence. I hope he died happy - having frolicked about, tired -, and not, as I fear, in pain. All evidence points to the contrary, but I can't help fearing that there might have been a pang of pain as he went, a prick of something, a final thought, perhaps, of feeling abandoned by us as we were not there. We were not there in body, but in spirit, I was. I thought of him, missed him, and loved him. As I will continue doing though he is no longer around.

(There was no dandruff in his pelt, and that points to him dying peacefully. When he got stressed even in the slightest, dandruff appeared immediately. Nero, Darling, I hope you didn't suffer. I love you.)

I hope that, if there were last thoughts, they were loving, happy and serene. Whether of us, walks, Enya (his one dog friend), treats, the things he left behind in general, the cottage, a particular moment, a toy or of the living room carpet - the "dobag", or "dobagen" - he so loved, I hope they were not laboured, or in any way unlike him in life. I hope Robinson Jeffers was right when he wrote for his Haig.

We saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in a daze, yesterday. We had just gotten the call in Covent Garden, and walked down to Leicester Square. Though I can't for the life of me tell you what transpired on-screen at certain points, it was relieving. Tottering about in my head for too long does no good.

We went to see him earlier. And although he was cold, slightly rigid ("rigor mortis", I thought - erroneously, at least partially: it sets in quite quickly after death, and then slowly recedes), belly bloated and eyes no longer seeing (, smelling of the vet's and the kennel, he was still my dog of ten years. My companion and great love. But, though he was in many ways himself, he was not.

One of his toys still smells slightly of him. And I can't really remember what he smelled like. I miss him already.

"Now cracks a noble heart. - Good night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing there to thy rest!" - "Hamlet", Shakespeare.   - I have, incredibly, found a use for Shakespeare. Hamlet's death is now entwined with creature's.

In a way, I wish I could have a new creature this instant, to fill the house's gaping crack. This is the end of his paw-prints, hair, licks, "double treat wake-ups", sounds (the "wraaau"'s will be sorely missed, as will the half-stiffled barking, the whimpers and the moans). Without him in it, this is not my home. It's empty, devoid of the spark that made it home' when I opened the door. This is the end of his sleepy face poking out the door as I unlock it, coming home from school; no more sleepy ears, flattened shoes and smell of him having slept. Washing my hair won't be the same, without him coming to deal with the foul smell of soap and shampoo - he never did tolerate us smelling of anything but ourselves, and, preferably, him.

This is the end of cooking, and throwing him a scrap of something that looks utterly disgusting, but apparently tastes finer than the finest of gourmet. The end of drinking tea, reading, hearing him sigh contentedly to my right as he rolls over on his side to sleep on - the car really wasn't anything to worry about after all, and a few barks while laying down did the trick as far as he was concerned.

The crack is not just in the house, it is in me. Something went missing the moment I heard my darling dog was dead. I wrote earlier, of a feeling that my childhood was coming to an end. If, then, it was coming to a skidding halt, the narrator of my memoirs just pulled the emergency brake and ran off to fiddle with a new part of my life.

My aunt and uncle popped by unexpectedly, and they helped fill the void for a while. Tomorrow we're off to the cottage, the place Nero loved the most, and I don't think the place will ever be the same without him. He will, however, always be part of the place. It is where we will let him rest. Perhaps somewhere on his favourite walk?

Elfremas Enchanted Fellow, or Nero, for the all-round less fancy occasion called daily life, is dead. He will be sorely missed. But I will not forget, nor will the others that spent ten years loving him. The fun, the laughs, the mischievous glint in his eyes as he stole a shoe or a mitten, the way his whole being lighted up at the prospect of treats, swims in Idefjorden, retrieving sticks we threw into the water, loaves of bread with liver paste, water in his bowl on the terrace. And the magnolia he chewed in half lives on, in his memory. As does the rhododendron he nearly delivered to an untimely death by continuously pissing on it this winter - now renamed in his honour, "nerodendron".

I miss my Darling. Evig eies kun det tapte, mente Ibsen Og det fine med menneskelig hukommelse er at den er selektiv, og i ettertid virker selv de få gangene han stjal sko fantastiske. Om jeg så hadde vært nødt til å tørke tiss av parketten et langt liv hadde jeg gjort hva som helst for å få ham tilbake bare en liten stund til. Så, selv om den lille nydlingen min, KGSSNMP, ikke går tur med oss i levende form lenger, ikke wrauuuer eller vekker, så er han der i ånden fordi jeg husker ham. Og kommer til å huske ham hver gang jeg sitter og spiser foran TV-en, og venter at han skal legge seg ned ved siden av, med hodet på putene og se pen ut. Tenk om det kom en godbit? Ei heller kommer jeg noen sinne til å kunne drikke te og lese i stolene ved vinduet uten å tenke på de gangene han enten lå ved kisten og bare var der, eller når han lå på dobagen, mellom stolen og sofaen, med et blikk utspekulert bebreidende på en måte bare han fikk til for at jeg ikke klappet ham på rompa istedenfor å lese Nabokov eller annen idioti.

Faen, det er tomt i dette motbydelig huset uten lydene hans.

( The poem by Robertson Jeffers, to his Haig, an English Bulldog. )

As for music, I'm listening to the song some fanbrat has plastered to clips of Rickman in "Sense and Sensibility" on Youtube. There's a flat in it, wagging its tail; chasing something intriguing, no doubt. Click for the clip in question. If anyone knows what song it is, please, do tell. And don't ask me why I'm listening to it, I seem to be inexplicably enticed.

The Definitive End

"This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper."

I hope it did not. I hope the world ended quietly, with, not a bang, but silence. I hope he died happy - having frolicked about, tired -, and not, as I fear, in pain. All evidence points to the contrary, but I can't help fearing that there might have been a pang of pain as he went, a prick of something, a final thought, perhaps, of feeling abandoned by us as we were not there. We were not there in body, but in spirit, I was. I thought of him, missed him, and loved him. As I will continue doing though he is no longer around.

(There was no dandruff in his pelt, and that points to him dying peacefully. When he got stressed even in the slightest, dandruff appeared immediately. Nero, Darling, I hope you didn't suffer. I love you.)

I hope that, if there were last thoughts, they were loving, happy and serene. Whether of us, walks, Enya (his one dog friend), treats, the things he left behind in general, the cottage, a particular moment, a toy or of the living room carpet - the "dobag", or "dobagen" - he so loved, I hope they were not laboured, or in any way unlike him in life. I hope Robinson Jeffers was right when he wrote for his Haig.

We saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in a daze, yesterday. We had just gotten the call in Covent Garden, and walked down to Leicester Square. Though I can't for the life of me tell you what transpired on-screen at certain points, it was relieving. Tottering about in my head for too long does no good.

We went to see him earlier. And although he was cold, slightly rigid ("rigor mortis", I thought - erroneously, at least partially: it sets in quite quickly after death, and then slowly recedes), belly bloated and eyes no longer seeing (, smelling of the vet's and the kennel, he was still my dog of ten years. My companion and great love. But, though he was in many ways himself, he was not.

One of his toys still smells slightly of him. And I can't really remember what he smelled like. I miss him already.

"Now cracks a noble heart. - Good night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing there to thy rest!" - "Hamlet", Shakespeare.   - I have, incredibly, found a use for Shakespeare. Hamlet's death is now entwined with creature's.

In a way, I wish I could have a new creature this instant, to fill the house's gaping crack. This is the end of his paw-prints, hair, licks, "double treat wake-ups", sounds (the "wraaau"'s will be sorely missed, as will the half-stiffled barking, the whimpers and the moans). Without him in it, this is not my home. It's empty, devoid of the spark that made it home' when I opened the door. This is the end of his sleepy face poking out the door as I unlock it, coming home from school; no more sleepy ears, flattened shoes and smell of him having slept. Washing my hair won't be the same, without him coming to deal with the foul smell of soap and shampoo - he never did tolerate us smelling of anything but ourselves, and, preferably, him.

This is the end of cooking, and throwing him a scrap of something that looks utterly disgusting, but apparently tastes finer than the finest of gourmet. The end of drinking tea, reading, hearing him sigh contentedly to my right as he rolls over on his side to sleep on - the car really wasn't anything to worry about after all, and a few barks while laying down did the trick as far as he was concerned.

The crack is not just in the house, it is in me. Something went missing the moment I heard my darling dog was dead. I wrote earlier, of a feeling that my childhood was coming to an end. If, then, it was coming to a skidding halt, the narrator of my memoirs just pulled the emergency brake and ran off to fiddle with a new part of my life.

My aunt and uncle popped by unexpectedly, and they helped fill the void for a while. Tomorrow we're off to the cottage, the place Nero loved the most, and I don't think the place will ever be the same without him. He will, however, always be part of the place. It is where we will let him rest. Perhaps somewhere on his favourite walk?

Elfremas Enchanted Fellow, or Nero, for the all-round less fancy occasion called daily life, is dead. He will be sorely missed. But I will not forget, nor will the others that spent ten years loving him. The fun, the laughs, the mischievous glint in his eyes as he stole a shoe or a mitten, the way his whole being lighted up at the prospect of treats, swims in Idefjorden, retrieving sticks we threw into the water, loaves of bread with liver paste, water in his bowl on the terrace. And the magnolia he chewed in half lives on, in his memory. As does the rhododendron he nearly delivered to an untimely death by continuously pissing on it this winter - now renamed in his honour, "nerodendron".

I miss my Darling. Evig eies kun det tapte, mente Ibsen Og det fine med menneskelig hukommelse er at den er selektiv, og i ettertid virker selv de få gangene han stjal sko fantastiske. Om jeg så hadde vært nødt til å tørke tiss av parketten et langt liv hadde jeg gjort hva som helst for å få ham tilbake bare en liten stund til. Så, selv om den lille nydlingen min, KGSSNMP, ikke går tur med oss i levende form lenger, ikke wrauuuer eller vekker, så er han der i ånden fordi jeg husker ham. Og kommer til å huske ham hver gang jeg sitter og spiser foran TV-en, og venter at han skal legge seg ned ved siden av, med hodet på putene og se pen ut. Tenk om det kom en godbit? Ei heller kommer jeg noen sinne til å kunne drikke te og lese i stolene ved vinduet uten å tenke på de gangene han enten lå ved kisten og bare var der, eller når han lå på dobagen, mellom stolen og sofaen, med et blikk utspekulert bebreidende på en måte bare han fikk til for at jeg ikke klappet ham på rompa istedenfor å lese Nabokov eller annen idioti.

Faen, det er tomt i dette motbydelig huset uten lydene hans.

( The poem by Robertson Jeffers, to his Haig, an English Bulldog. )

As for music, I'm listening to the song some fanbrat has plastered to clips of Rickman in "Sense and Sensibility" on Youtube. There's a flat in it, wagging its tail; chasing something intriguing, no doubt. Click for the clip in question. If anyone knows what song it is, please, do tell. And don't ask me why I'm listening to it, I seem to be inexplicably enticed.