HEART

The man of the house had almost brilliantly solved his chronic insomnia by conveniently advancing the role of the family’s young, comfy-looking Newfoundland female pup to the position of “pillow.” This way the master’s ear would be in constant receivership to the never-changing beat of the heart of man’s best friend. From home, mind you. Mainlanders with sleep problems would kill to have such grandeur.

Hers would be one beat master could count on. And—conveniently enough—this was neatly solved by the fact that the large, fluffy, special man’s BFF, too, in its wonderful way, enjoyed lying down a lot, sometimes squirming its way past when she’d have to be let out. And, timing her clock with her master, only required a small orchestral demand. Having said this, being master’s pillow came ever so close to providing her main reason for being. First and mainly, you got your steady heartbeat, which the non-sleeper could appreciate and follow along with to some extent. In another life, the two of them could be a Vaudeville act of some importance. That is, of course, if sleeping made up the heart of their main act.

However, in time, there appeared a bump to someone’s female self esteem, during a moment of scratching. She could barely remember her own name. “HER,” she thought it was, and what kind of a friggin’ name was that? This, plus a bit of rumbling in her familiar Newfoundlandese.

She tried slipping her bulk away from Master’s influence. What did she get from this habit?  Nothing noticeable. An extra bowl? Bullshit! She could get that anyway by sheer pushiness. No, no, this was something else. It probably struck her—over time—that she was being pummeled into shape for sleeping, and only sleeping. Yes! By God Rin-tin-tin!! Just like a damn PILLOW!!

Following a decent amount of  groaning—loud enough to off-set the world’s most reliable  heartbeat—she took to a lot more rumbling and tears enough to match that of a decent flood, drenching master to the point where Pillow found herself back in the children’s room, where as heartbeats go, theirs were the purest of all.