[Grime/Griswold household, evening. Gilda and Terence are watching a movie on TV in the living room, giant bowls of popcorn on their laps. Gilda picks up a bottle of lemon juice and squirts it onto her popcorn]
Terence: “Sis, that’s weird.”
Gilda: “No, you’re weird for caring. What I put on my popcorn is none of your business.”
Terence: “Yeah, but… lemon juice? “
Gilda: “It makes the popcorn taste sour and sweet.” [picks up handful and shows it to Terence] “You want some?”
Terence: “No, I’ll have my popcorn buttered. Like a normal ine. Get that weird stuff away from me.”
Gilda: “Hmph! So stubborn!” [shoves popcorn into mouth, glaring at Terence as she eats it. The ringtone of Sharon’s phone sounds in the kitchen]
[ringtone]: 🎵 Oh, this is gonna be so much fun / Oh, this is gonna be so much — 🎵
[beep. Sharon answers]
Sharon: “Hello, Redfeather. It’s happening? Mm-hmm. Yep. I’ll be over right away.” [hangs up. Gilda leans over to see Sharon in the kitchen, frantically open the cabinet, take out a bowl, and fill it with water from the fridge; she sings a crude, fast, off-tempo version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” as the bowl fills] 🎵Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down / Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down 🎵
[Sharon scat-sings the piano bit as Gilda walks in]
Gilda: “Grandma? What’s going on?” [chuckles] “You’re acting like somebody’s giving birth or something.”
[Sharon turns around and shows Gilda the dog bowl, half-full of water. Gilda’s eyes go big]
[at Redfeather’s house. Redfeather and Sharon are in the living room with the former’s Shar Pei, Prune, who is in labor; Gilda stands outside the room]
Redfeather: “My dog’s giving birth!”
Gilda: “Prune’s about to be a mama!” [steps into the room] “Hang on, Pruney, Gilda’s coming!”
Sharon: “No, Gil. You don’t want to be in here.”
Gilda: “Don’t want to be in there? But it’s puppies!”
Sharon: “Gilda, trust me. The birth of newborn puppies isn’t as cute as it sounds. It’s wet and bloody, and the babies look sickly.”
Gilda: “Sickly like how?”
Sharon: “Pink where grown dogs don’t usually have pink, their eyes are closed so tight that they look angry, and also they’re wrinkly. They almost look older than actual elderly dogs.”
Gilda: “Wrinkly? But that’s what makes Shar Peis look so cute!”
Sharon: “Gilda, just trust me, you don’t want to be in here.”
Gilda: “I’ll still get to pick out a puppy for the house once they’re all out, though, right?”
Sharon, Redfeather: “Yes.”
[Gilda smiles]
Redfeather: “Not the first one, though. That’ll be mine.” [beat. Gilda leaves the room] “Whoop, speak of the devil.” [Prune pushes out a puppy, and cleans it as they squirm around on the floor]
Sharon: “Good girl!” [picks the puppy up] “Son of a bitch.”
Redfeather: “What? What’s wrong?” [looks at the puppy] “Oh. He is a son of a bitch.” [fastens tiny red collar around the puppy’s neck] “Welcome to the world, little guy.” [thinks back to a few seconds ago] “Speak of the devil… hm. Satan.”
Sharon: “Redfeather, you can’t call a dog Satan.”
Redfeather: “Sure I can, he’s my dog.” [Sharon glares at him] “Okay, fine. Cerberus.” [sets Cerberus beside Prune’s stomach]
[Three hours later, Prune has given birth to the rest of her litter. Six puppies in all, the five after Cerberus given yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta collars, in that order. All of the puppies are nursing]
Sharon: “Remember, Gilda, whichever you pick out, you’ll responsible for. Not just for their playtime and giving them treats, but also for putting out food and water for them, and for letting them outside to do their business. And the occasional bath, of course.”
Gilda: “Yes, grandma, I know all this.”
Sharon: “And also these puppies are of nursing age for, what, a month?”
Redfeather: “Prune spent two months.”
Sharon: “Two months. For the next two months, whichever puppy you get, you’re gonna be bottle-feeding. Since they won’t be getting milk from their mother. Oh, and of course, once it’s on solid food, it’ll start growing fast. These are Chow Peis, so expect them to be about… how much?”
Redfeather: “Prune weighs sixty pounds. Chow Chows weigh… a few pounds more. Let’s round it to five. Sixty-five pounds.”
Sharon: “You got that, Gilda? Sixty-five pounds.”
Gilda: “Sixty-five, woah. That’s over half a me!”
Sharon: “Yep. And as for how much food they’ll need, well, I’m sure you have that one figured out.”
Gilda: “You know, you say all this as if I wasn’t prepared to take this on.”
Sharon: “I just thought I’d remind you what you’re in for.”
Gilda: “So, uh, can I pick one now?”
Sharon: “I don’t know why you weren’t picking one when I was talking to you, multitasking’s supposed to be one of a procyonine’s natural gifts.”
[Gilda crouches to get a good look at the puppies]
Redfeather: “Remember, Cerberus is mine. He’s the one with the red collar.”
[Gilda is silent for a few seconds, before her eyes lock onto the puppy with the green collar]
Gilda: “Ooh, this one’s cute.” [rubs the puppy’s back with her index finger] “So fluffy. I’m guessing from the collar they were the third one?”
Redfeather: “Yes he was.”
Gilda: “His fur reminds me of a puff of smoke.” [beat] “And if it’s true what you say about him being over half my size by the time he’s grown… oh boy, he’ll want to sleep on me at night, won’t he?”
Redfeather: “If he ends up affectionate, he will want to. And he will do so.”
Gilda: “And in doing so, he’ll leave me gasping for air. Like a… puff of smoke.” [beat] “Grandma, what do you think of ‘Smoke’?”
Sharon: “Is… is that what you’re naming him?”
Gilda: “Yeah. I think it’s fitting for him.”
Sharon: “It’s… well, it’s a better name than Satan.”
[Smoke latches off of Prune and crawls away. Gilda picks him up and kisses him on the forehead]
Gilda: “Welcome to the world, Smoke! You’ve got a lot to see. Once you open those eyes of yours.”
Redfeather: “Have a nice heartbreak in a decade or so!”
Gilda: “I will, Mr. Redfe — wait, what?”
Redfeather: “Nothing.”
[Gilda and Sharon leave the room, beginning to leave Redfeather’s]
Gilda: “We… do have a bottle, right, grandma?”
Sharon: “Yes, I have a glass one in the attic. I used it to feed your mother when she was an infant.”
Gilda: “Pffft. And we’ll be cleaning out whatever dust and stuff’s been accumulating in there the past… forty years or so, right?”
Sharon: “My family deserves better than dusty milk, ine or wild. As if you even needed to ask that.”
Well, am I glad to finally have this one out. As a bit of closure I will never have.
As many of my followers would know, the YouTuber James Phyrillas, better known by his username ‘Schaffrillas’, was recently involved in a car accident in which his brother Patrick and friend Chris Schaffer were killed, and he was left injured. Anyone who knows me well know where this is leading; his accident reminded me of my own accident back in May of 2020, that left me wheelchair-bound for the entirety of summer, as well as the death of my (originally my sister’s) Labrador Retriever/Chow Chow mix, Doug.
Being stuck in a wheelchair wasn’t the hard part, there wasn’t much to do that summer anyway. We… we all know why.
☠️☠️☠️2020 SUCKED FOR LITERALLY EVERYONE. ☠️☠️☠️
But losing Doug, that was fucking awful. I’d already lost Molly the month before, and I had to go through the pain of losing a beloved animal companion once again. Even nearly three years later, I have not gotten over losing him. I haven’t gotten over the fact that I’m responsible for his death. And I especially haven’t gotten over the fact that I never even got to say goodbye to him; those moments we spent in the rubble of that Kia Forte, wrecked by a left turn made in a moment of impatience and negligence, were the last moments we spent together. Though Doug survived the initial impact with only a cut on his nose, the medicine he was given in the days following to help him relieve the pain, damaged his kidneys, already weakened by Lyme disease, to the point where he could no longer function. He was put to sleep twelve days after the accident, never knowing what had happened to me.
And yes, I do know that he missed me; while I was still in the hospital, my mother showed me a picture on her phone, of him sitting outside my room. He knew something wasn’t right.
Doug’s death is also what turned me off from religion for good. In the days following the accident, I believed that angels may have been looking out for me. But after Doug was put down, I realized how ridiculous that was. Why would angels be looking out for me and not Doug? Was Doug not good enough for this world? Why must bad things happen to those who do no wrong? If there is a God, that God has it out for me. I’m like Sonic in the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Robotnik is God. In the Under Ground Zone, just as I was about to fall in the metaphorical lava, here comes my lifelong enemy to save me. God, the universe, whatever. Save me only to put me in front of… well, I don’t know what that thing is in the game. An antlion’s head in a pit or something? But for me, it’s my fears, my guilt, and the void calling me to join Doug and Molly on the other side.
I’ve always assumed it’s Grunvale keeping me alive. Every time the metaphorical ball to hit my own antlion head goes up, that’s progress being made on my work. And every time it falls, that’s when I hit writer’s/artist’s block, and don’t know where to continue, hope that ball won’t fall on me. That’s what life is for me since the accident, since losing Doug. A metaphorical fight against the first and somehow hardest boss, in one of the worst games in the Sonic franchise. Is it an objective fact that it’s the worst? No, it’s my strong opinion. But that boss always sticks out to me as one of my least favorite in gaming. And that stage, Under Ground Zone Act 3, is the best analog I can think of for the struggles in my own life. I’m Sonic, Robotnik’s the force that decided to torture me instead of kill me, the boss is the curse on my mental health, and those bouncing balls are Grunvale and the progress I make on it.
Maybe that last part is the optimistic side of all this. Because as I’ve said before, I may be the creator of Grunvale, but I wouldn’t say I’m the one that gave it life. It’s Grunvale, that gave life to me. A reason to live. I’m still here because the world needs me here, to tell the story of that nerdy procyonine and what goofy stuff she gets up to with her friends.
…let’s go back to what I said above. About this being a way to find closure I will never have. Because I imagine a Chow Chow much like Doug, being Smoke’s father. If he can’t live in my world, then I’ll have him live in the world of the stories I tell. As the father of Gilda’s dog, who mates with a dog of her favorite breed, to create a wrinkly fluffball that she of course would adore.
You live again, Doug. Not in physical form in my world, but in digital form in the world of the stories I tell. And you even have puppies to carry on your legacy. 🥲
Sorry this got so heavy. We’ll be back to lighter fare next time. Until then, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, have a good one, and rest easy, Patrick and Chris. You shooting stars broke the mold.
In Memory of Patrick Phyrillas and Chris Schaffer
Twitter (Main): https://twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
Twitter (Art): https://twitter.com/TheOfficialOTOG
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Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” was written by Paul Simon for Simon and Garfunkel’s album of the same name, owned by Sony Music Entertainment through Columbia Records.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
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