"No more wine for you, Bucko!" Andy replied. We thought you were dead!" "Huh?

"
Feeling sluggish, weak, and more than a little confused, Eddie did manage a lop
sided grin. Then he fell asleep.
Waking, Eddie looked around him, searching for a clock. He was now laying in be
d, a soft, female scented comfort that he did not want to leave. Dozing again h
e was awakened by the barking of dogs and cursing of the women.
Buddy came barreling in, closely followed by Aggie holding a broken piece of cha
in. "That big, dumb son-of-a-bitch broke this chain to come see you!" Of cours
e by now Buddy had leaped onto the bed, licking and slobbering all over the pro
testing patient.
"AAAGGGHHH!" "That's enough already, Buddy," he managed. "No!" That did it, Bu
ddy lay down with his head on Eddie's chest, whimpering his greetings. (okay?)
"Yeah, I'm okay, Bud." (listen kammi) "Huh?" Then, forgetting who else was in
the room, he asked, "Want me to talk to Kammi, eh?" "What's your mom got to say
that you can't tell me?"
He caught Buddy's sideways look and remembered Aggie, who had come to stand by t
he side of the bed after opening the curtains of the room's only window. She ha
d a puzzled look on her face and appeared to be about to say something when her
two sisters came in, followed by the dogs.
They had his clothes, apparently cleaned, and a tray of food that made his mouth
water. "Uh, before I eat, I really gotta,,,, Arabelle blushed, but the other t
wo merely set down their loads and sat down in the various chairs scattered arou
nd the room.
It was at this point that the urgency to piss almost overwhelmed him which certa
inly would have been embarrassing in the company of others but he had known the
sisters for many years in many different circumstances. It didn't bother him at
all to skip naked to the bathroom to perform his duty.
Upon returning, feeling much better but way hungrier, he slipped into his jeans
and flannel shirt and began chowing down. The women were looking at him in shoc
ked disbelief as he polished off a breakfast big enough for all of them. Nobody
had said a word, either. Apparently all were waiting for him to say something
around mouthfuls of sausage and eggs.
From the dogs he got just a little tickle, a feel good tickle. A kind of 'We're
glad you're back' thought, not words. Which made him finally ask, " So, what's
up?" Their stares of open-mouthed astonishment confused him for a second as he
looked back and forth between them. "Well?"
Andy was the first to put words to her conflicting emotions, "Why you ungrateful
son-of-a-bitch, you were dead!" Then she got up and rushed over to him, sobbin
g," Eddie, you had no pulse!" "No heartbeat I could find!" Then almost accusin
gly, "The dogs were just as bad!" "What happened to you?"
"Uh",,,,,"Well, it was kinda like",,,.(tell shes) and a feeling of warmth and se
curity swept over him. (tell shes, now) "Uh, Okay Kammi" he mumbled. "Why can't
you tell them?" This got a perplexed look from the girls. (listen man, no list
en kammi) "You mean they can't hear you?" (yes) "Oh, wow."
Andy, who had moved back to her chair, returned and put a hand on his forehead,
"Are you sure you're all right?" If looks could talk what he got from the other
two would have said the same thing, "Are you nuts?" He grinned and said, " Fi
rst of all, what happened while I was out of it?" "It seemed like only a couple
of hours to me."
Now they were all tripping all over each other trying to hold him and talk and f
end off the dogs at the same time. "You fell asleep right after I talked with y
ou and in about ten minutes you stiffened up like a board." Andy continued, "Af
ter about a half hour or so, I realized something was wrong and got up to check.
"
"That's when we came in," piped up Arabelle. "You were stiff and so were the do
gs, we thought it was maybe something to do with the Chinese attack on the west
coast, you know, like a nerve gas or something." "Huh?" "Attack!" began Eddie.
"Now don't get ahead of the story, 'Belle." Aggie was winding up with her two c
ent's worth, " You were like that for three days, Eddie, no heartbeat, no breath
, but your pupils were spinning around like crazy!" Things were starting to cli
ck when Eddie asked, "So what made you try to wake me up?" "You were shaking the
shit out of me!"
"That wasn't us, Eddie," began Arabelle. Then Andy took over again, "We thought
we might have to evacuate, the earthquake was that bad." "Look at the ceiling"
and she pointed to three or four long, zig-zagging cracks in the painted drywal
l. "It felt like the end of the world!" "Even with all the heavy engineering p
ut into this place by Dad, it was still shaking apart."
Their father had been an internationally renowned engineer and architect who had
made a bundle designing earthquake-proof buildings all over the world. "That b
ad, eh?"
"Yes it was!" Andy was almost shouting now, "And then Aggie noticed the dogs we
re moving a little and sure enough, so were you." "I had tried an IV drip to ge
t some kind of fluid into you, but the quake ripped it out of your arm, and the
ceiling was falling in,,,then it stopped, all of a sudden , just stopped."
"We hauled the dogs outside to the backyard and when we came back you were thras
hing around , your ears were bleeding again and we didn't know what to do, but y
ou woke up!" "Yeah and then he went right back to sleep!" This was from Aggie w
ho was sitting next to Kammi, her pet and the first Labrador in the area, found
wandering, starving and lost, out by the old highway.
"Jeeez, no wonder I had to pee so bad!" This brought a gale of laughter from t
he assembled people and the dogs looked like they understood too.
"So tell us what happened to you, do you remember?" Eddie looked at Aggie and i
n a small voice said, "It was something impossible to forget" he paused then co
ntinued, "from what I could gather, I think I was shown the history of humankind
!"
The silence in the room was thick with expectancy. "But what was really cool was
, I found out the secret of our creation!" They were on the edges of their seats
now. "What we are here for, and what the dogs are here for." "I talked with G
OD!"