In Conversation with Roscoe
Maybe it happened or maybe it didn’t. It depends on who you spoke to. Some say it’s a fable, just a story designed to get you to feel inspired and that those things don’t really exist. I was there and I know the truth. Your perception of it is the only thing that matters because it’s what guides your reasoning. Frankly, what you think about this story says more about you.
It was just another ordinary day at the Imaginary Dog Academy, a.k.a. the I.D.A. I was sitting in on a lecture on Ruffian philosophy when I was called to duty. I was given the task to serve as Heba’s imaginary dog. I was going to California. Ah yes, an American family. Good ol’ Kentucky Bourbon, Texas Bacon and the 4th of July. The almighty DOG in imaginary heaven has been good to me I thought to myself.
I’d never heard of the name Heba before but I just thought it was one of those hippie families, you know, the kind that name their kids after herbs like Sage. You can imagine my grave disappointment, however, when I landed a family that doesn’t eat pork or drink booze. “What do you mean they don’t eat pepperoni?” I asked my sergeant. That night I put my paws up and prayed real hard. “DOG, are you there? It’s me, Roscoe. Isn’t there an Amber in Aspen somewhere? There must be some mistake. “ And just like you can’t choose the family you were born into you can’t pick your I.D. assignments either. Just the other day I heard that my Chihuahua buddy Ramon is touring with a Mariachi band down in Oaxaca. Vai con Perro my friend.
Who me? I’m a Shepard. Well, a half breed really. My daddy was German and my mom was a Cocker Spaniel. She was a real looker too. My daddy said it was love at first bite. She bit him when he tried to take a sniff without asking.
Anyway, Heba, like all kids, was full of creativity and imagination. She didn’t get along with her family much so she would spend lots of time writing stories. They were funny as hell too. I think maybe we just had the same sense of humor. Sometimes she would stay in her room writing all day as a distraction from all the anger, yelling and explosive violence.
Reminded me of ID assignment number 39671. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoy an itch under the collar. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t get something out of it though. Back in ‘Nam I was the sniffer as part of the bomb squad division. I’d be out all day smellin’ for C4 residue. I saw a couple of my canine compadres get their hind legs blown straight off. They started given them hind wheelchairs and put them back to work. They looked ridiculous! Me and the other fellas used to loosen their straps and startle them awake while they slept. Man, would we howl as they would go off forgetting that they didn’t have any hind legs. We did it purely for the look on their faces. They looked like a bunch of wheelbarrows dragging through the mud if you ask me. What? I was an imaginary war dog, don't get so upset.
Oh. Ok, back to Heba. One of my favorite professors who taught Dogthropology back at the academy used to say, “When you limit thought, you stifle imagination and when imagination is gone life ceases to exist.” Heba was bombarded with dogma that rejected examination or questioning. She was told that even if she didn’t like a particular ideology, she still had to believe in it. As fear and doubt crept in, her imagination went AWOL and well, you know what happens next. I began to dissolve. First it was my nose, then my ears and then my mouth. Pretty soon I was nothing more than a waggin’ tail. That’s when you know your assignments are over. My very existence relies on the imagination.
I’m about 70 in imaginary dog years now and I still think about Heba, wondering what she’s up to. It’s times like these I wonder if I existed in her imagination or if she existed in mine. I suppose there’s no difference. I sure hope that she’s found her imagination again and more importantly that she hasn’t lost her sense of humor.
What’s my outlook on life? Well, take a look around you. Everything that you see stems from someone’s imagination. We are constantly creating something out of nothing. So I guess my outlook on life is to try and make something out of it. Try and make something out of nothing.
Anyone interested in more conversations with Roscoe?