In his world, we are the ghosts and he is trying to be.

Timmy walks up to the open back door, I can see him from up on a ladder where I'm painting a ceiling out back. I am so weirdo obsessive about painting and stupid underpainting colors with plaster and I don't know when I'll ever get the damn thing done. I hate these colors now. He walks up to the back door, and stands there and looks surprised for a moment. Then blank. Looks to his right, his eyes open wide again, just surprised for a moment, then keeps standing there and sniffs the air. Then lets out a big sigh, only sound he really makes now, and eyes go back to cloudy, not seeing. Stands very, very still in the doorway, not moving for a bit. Not sure what he was seeing there. Could he see out the door to where I was on the ladder? Did he just think of something and smell the air?

I sort of wave my arm, sometimes he can see motion. Maybe playing with fire because sometimes he just without warning flings himself down the porch steps. Lands in a roll and always finds a way to stumble off. I wave my arm around because it's been a while since he's tried a step launch, now just waits to be carried down. So he just stands there without moving, except sometimes the head turn. Always turns right, standing in the doorway. Remember Timmy, all the time I used to spend up on ladders with a paintbrush? We both always had paint in our hair. And you would just lay there and wait for however long it took to finish. Days, weeks, months, and you were so good about not stepping in paint. No dogs since have that concept that you don't step in the paint. Sometimes chewed up the ends of paint brushes is all.

I go over and carry him down the steps and let him spin around in the yard for a while, he bumps into plants. You can't let him do that for long because he'll get stuck and the get anxious and the spinning becomes frantic panting which might start up a panic attack. Have been trying to keep those from happening. At night, when they seem likely, instead of tranquilizing him, now I try to stay up, carrying him in and out, trying to figure out what it is that thing that would make him happy. Sit with him, or just sit near him to send psychic brain waves that I'll keep him safe and wake him up from this shadowless world he inhabits now. It doesn't seem so bad, sleeping a couple hours then getting up at 1 or 2am and staying awake with him, just me and him while everyone else is asleep. But I think he doesn't see it like that. Even my touch makes him twitch and recoil, like we're all ghosts and he's not sure where we're coming from. He see's dead people and maybe they are me. I think all he knows is he is lost inside our house again and can't find his way out.

When Timmy was young, every morning we walked to the duck pond and along this landscaped path near a creek. I didn't think much that it was a bad thing to let him chase the ducks. I am pretty sure this wasn't a sanctioned acitivity at the duck pond, but no one was every around there as early as me. He'd pull and bark and run all the way down the duckpond. "High strung" was how some people described Timmy when I first got him. And every morning, off we went, down the grassy lawn, possibly was a no dogs allowed grassy lawn, and off he ran, down to the manmade pond, and all the ducks flew up in a burst and he'd run around and around and around. Sometimes couldn't catch him, would just sort of hang out and wait til he was all run out and hope no duck lovers show up til ducks all flown and then we'd walk back or down that path a ways.


Today we just walked up to the corner. Past super old and deaf Richard's who still drives house, past the house that looks like a mobile home but isn't with people who have a baby but we never see, past the vacant rental house with the nice gardener and a jaguar statue on the porch. Real slow, brought along just Otterpop. Takes a while to walk past those 3 houses. He walks a few steps, stands there and looks around. Like he's not on our street anymore, I don't know where he is. He stopped under this low tree shaped like a lollipop they all like to sniff around and just stayed there. Eyes vacant, was sunny and breezy and not too much smoke in the air. Stood still a while til I turned him and walked back the 3 houses or so to our driveway, where he stopped, turned toward the street. Everything so hazy until I slowly walked him back up the driveway and carried him into the house.