My year abroad...

I'm on a brief stint as a truffle hunter in Northern Italy. White truffles to be exact, don't like them much myself, but people pay top dollar for a burlap sack of oozing fungus. Hired myself a truffle dog name "Snawzers." He works for Italian minimum wage as long as I look the other way when he follows some poor couple into an alley - tourists mostly.


We've been up and down this country side. Snawzers says I'm on a fool's quest, chasing a dream, dreaming I'm living. I tell him to do more sniffing and less talking.


Last winter we got stranded in some abandoned village near the foothills of the Alps. For three months we ate the fermented sausages we found in the basement of a dilapidated cottage. And every night the god-damned place was crawling with vampires so we'd draw a circle around us and whisper some incantation Snawzers learned from his supposed "Shaman" grandfather "Edward Barkington." They'd be leering at us from beyond the circle of candlelight; shadows wanting to swipe at us.

One night I just about got sick of it, so I decided to introduce myself. Turns out the buggers were just starving for some good conversation. Now I'm vice president of their book club. We read a lot of Ann Rice, which I guess is okay, but I still haven't read Moby Dick so I'm planning to suggest it be added to the roster. Snawzers says Mody Dick is a fool's quest, we'll never finish reading it, just give up while you can, he says. Maybe he's right.

Diary entry of Sergio published by Snawsers

My first love...

I pulled a rat from the burning wreckage of a toppled dumpster. I held it in my arms and breathed life back into its twisted frame. The rehabilitation was long; it was months before the brave thing could look at me with the courage to smile. On a fresh April morning the sun shone in her eyes. They twinkled with sweet pain of finally walking, slowly at first, small steps but it was a start. You beat it, I said, you can do anything. Doctors don't believe in spirit, in heart, but that's all a little rat can run on. Sometimes that's all you need.

Now we're getting married and I've never been happier. We found a little place behind the grocery on Glade Street. The buffet thrown onto our doorstep every evening is more than we could ever eat on our own. Let’s just say there may be a half a dozen buns in the oven.

One night while nestled in my beard, she told me how lucky she was to be able to start over, given another chance. I said, sometimes that's all anyone needs.

I've never asked her how she got in that alcohol drenched dumpster behind the liquor store, or how it burned and fell over. And I never will. I figure some things in the past are better off left there. Once when she didn't realize, I watched her gnawing on one of those pig ankles from the deli section. This little rodent's past brought her all the way to me, and I know that even though the past may be painful, we have to give thanks to both of ours for bringing us together.

What you thinking about darling, she said, nestling into my grizzled beard fur.

“Oh nothing.”

by Grizzle Lumbar