Coming up, I drank some water. Sat on a bench. Watched kids watch gorillas watch people. Picnic of children and mothers in dresses pick nits from the fur of the family tree.

Humans and dogs have lived in symbiosis for tens of thousands of years, each adapting to the other’s psychology. But what if that balance tipped fully toward the canine side? What if dogs, with their pack logic and clear hierarchies, became the ruling species — and humans, willingly or not, became their loyal companions?

"If you fail, it's because you weren't hungry enough, or smart, or willing to work. The formula is simple enough - sacrifice sleep, joy, time, and doubt. Replace these with measurable outcomes. Why are so many unwilling to do what is required?

In the center, on an altar, lay the sacrifice: Bad Bunny, skin mottled by the fickle light, chest rising and falling slowly. He was drugged and bound in ritual knots, hair spread like ink, moustache and goatee untamed. He smiled faintly in confusion, whispering sounds none of the other Bad Bunnys could hear.

Knock at the door. What the hell? I hate this shit. Nobody knocks on your door when you own your house because they know they get the business end of a Glock in their face. What time is it? 11 am. Who is it? I am not to be fucked with.

Glancing out the passenger side, I see a girl in a Honda Civic, angelic and orderly, looking at me through the raindrops on her window and the raindrops on mine. I grin, embarrassed. She smirks. She's beautiful.

And up high, there’s a sweatshirt tangled in the branches, flapping rhythmically. Makes a little jam with the traffic, something to rock to, back and forth. Perfectly good sweatshirt. When I get woke up, I’m going to go over and get it.

Around a goldfish pond, unwashed kids tormenting love bugs, lips powder-yellow with pollen, slathered in Bahiagrass seed. The bed of an umber Ford rusts through and green is bursting bright.

Across the gray glass stain of the sky, water droplets collect and run as if chased by the wind.  They merge into rivulets.  I reach out, I strain for them with my hair, and (now we’re getting somewhere) I feel the waters of the sky run up individual strands of hair to my scalp and into the veins in my temple, into the sea, and (breathe) I open myself and start to think in a language not my own.