-^-for posterity-^-

our little boy is sick.

julie found him sniffing through a bag of laundry detergent a few days ago. he must have ingested a few of the soapy granules. ever since then, he’s been moping around the house and throwing up. his ears are low and his eyes are sullen. he looks miserable and doesn’t eat.

we took him to the vet. we were determined to have him feel better.

the vet is located in the middle of a busy street. it is the bottom floor of a residential house and there is a built-in operating room. the operating room is outfitted with glass walls so all the passing lottery ticket sellers and random strangers can watch whatever gruesome operation they choose. there are a variety of operating tables. some of them are fitted with muzzles. others have metal grates for bottoms as to allow all the blood and guts to drop all the way to the tiled floor.

there are large, glass cabinets holding all sorts of knives, needles and magic bottles of potions. a small girl walked out wearing a teal shirt and slippers. she looked like she just woke up and didn’t seem much concerned for the health of our dog. we were very concerned and all stood shifting our weight from foot to foot like pendulums.

she first took his temperature. you don’t take an animal’s temperature orally or under the armpit and jota didn’t seem much to enjoy it. he squirmed and whined a bit but we held him firmly. he didn’t have a temperature.

she decided the he must have eaten some sort of chemical and started to produce bottle after bottle of magic liquid. she mixed them all together and we ended up with two syringes full.

now comes the fun part.

she sat the dog on my lap and got out a green piece of cloth. she tied it around his mouth twice and then looped it behind his head. she wiped the back of the dog with some sort of alcohol and then jabbed the needle straight down into the dog. the needle was at least two inches long and she didn’t seem to angle it at all. the dog lurched this way and that and the needle fell out once. he moaned and yelled and screamed and wanted to die. we held him firmly even though the needle must have been rubbing against all sorts of organs and muscles. the second needle was put in at an angle directly under the skin. he didn’t mind it as much but moaned and squirmed.

we asked what to feed him and they said, don’t feed him rice, don’t feed him milk but give him some chao. i said, “what is chao?” no one could answer my question but we went looking for the miracle remedy.

we found it on a street corner being sold by a very slow moving old lady. i asked for one bag of chao to go and she started rummaging through a box laying next to her. she rummaged slowly, very slowly. she took out tongue, stomach, intestine, liver and something that looked like brain. she took a chop off of each of them and put them in a bag. she then opened a pot that looked to be full of dirty water. it was brown, steaming and had darker things floating in it. it turned out to be some sort of rice gruel. she put it all in a bag and we headed home.

our dog still won’t eat anything and sits under one of the benches in my room. hopefully he gets better soon.