Retron, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, compares the keeper’s railing and ranting against life’s absurdities to a dog howling at the moon; and further advises him to accept his existential identity with at least as much grace as the howling dog eventually recognizing that no matter how much it howls, the moon is not going to bring about any meaningful change.
Denying absurdity as THE major life circumstance becomes more difficult every day, and the keeper sees the challenge as keeping the absurdist, dreaming dummies out of his living quarters because they are not house-broken and would stink up the place.
That must be his reason for ranting, which returns him back to howling at the moon to change the reality of abject stupidity controlling more and more essential global and personal conditions.
The keeper can know only this: Evolution, biology and extreme good luck brought him and Phyllis together to love each other, and that is enough to pause his howling.
