Sophie had to laugh at Jamie’s attempt at writing ‘eloquent’. She read on.
Ah. My mind is wandering, and it is hard to concentrate. I miss you, Sam. I’ll see you soon. I keep replaying what happened. Maybe I shouldn’t have resisted you. Or maybe I did the right thing and put you out of your misery. I know you’ll hate me for this, but I am taking the coward’s way out. I know you’ll hate me even more for this, but I poisoned the dog too. I can hear our baby puppy barfing downstairs. I just hope he doesn’t barf it all up. But I can hardly move anymore. Can’t write much more.
Sophie had to figure out a lot of the words now, as the writing started getting sloppy and jumbled.
Poison sucks. It hurts! Sam I’m sorry. I love you.
There was only one last line that she could make out, and despite feeling sad, she had to laugh.
Goodbye cruel world!
Dean knew him better, but Sophie knew that Jamie had a flair for the dramatic and the comedic.
Sophie could hear Dean rummaging around somewhere inside the building. She stuck her head out the office door and saw Dean bringing up a bag of dog food and a bowl.
“Oh, hey babe.” He said when he saw her. He flashed her a smile. “I Found these by the little kitchen at the back door. Also, I listened at the window and it’s all quiet again.” He saw the diary in her hands. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Jamie poisoned himself. I think he poisoned the dog too, but it looks like Nuggets threw up the poison before it could take effect.”
“Ah.” Dean stopped. For a moment, his usually cheerful countenance looked troubled and sad. He looked up and met Sophie’s eyes. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Ok. Keep looking through that diary. Maybe there is something in there that will help us.” His hopes had been stacked on the Wilsons’ having found some tincture or elixir that would cure the syndrome.
“Ok.” Sophie turned around and re-entered the office. She sat down and flipped back a few pages. The writing was a lot neater. This was Sam’s writing.
The world is going crazy out there! They are firing nukes at each other. I hope cooler heads prevail. We’ve decided to lock ourselves in. We lowered the roll shutters and closed most of the curtains. Of course, we don’t have any electricity because of the damn dog.
Puzzled, Sophie stopped reading and flipped back until she found a passage regarding Nuggets. The page was dated October 20th.
Wow that dog really did it this time. Jamie saved its life, almost at the expense of his own! I told him so many times to curb the dog’s incessant habit of gnawing on things he shouldn’t be.
Ok I need to describe this properly to do it justice. Just so that the older me can read this and be entertained.
Sam had put a smiley face after that statement. It stirred up a feeling of sadness for Sophie.
Sorry Sam. You won’t get a chance to read this... I’ll read it for you though.
It happened right around lunch time. The dog was outside, digging where it shouldn’t be. I told Jamie a million times to get that damn dog away from my flower bed. Well, Nuggets sure found something this time!
I was in the kitchen, when suddenly two things happened at the same time. One: There was this huge “KAI!” sound from the dog outside, and two: All the power went out in the kitchen – or actually the entire house.
I had barely opened the back door when Jamie flew past me and out the door. Jamie loves that dog a little too much. He even yelled out “My baby!”. I followed him out the door to see Nuggets’ back end sticking out of the latest hole he’d dug. It didn’t look right though. He was all twitchy. Jamie immediately ran over and grabbed the dog – and then he just froze, with this weird grimace on his face. He slowly toppled to the side, still clutching the dog. And that’s how he saved the dog. You see that damn dog – that’s right Jamie it’s a damn dog and not a ‘baby puppy’! – it had dug up an underground power cable and proceeded to chew through the conduit. It got the shock of its life when it got through that conduit though. Jamie got a shock himself when he grabbed the dog, and was only saved when he fell over, pulling the dog with him and breaking contact with the cable.
Ok, I wasn’t so cool and collected at the time. I was freaking out! But I’ve had a chance to gather myself since it happened (a few hours ago).
The dog was unconscious for a few seconds before coming to. Nuggets was very disoriented for the rest of the day, and he got burn marks on his sides – never mind that mouth! But amazingly, he seems fine now. Jamie has small burn marks on his fingers, and he says all his joints hurt. They’re going to be fine. Ah damn! I didn’t do the story any justice. And it is dark so I can’t see the page too well anymore. Because our power is out. We called the power company and all they did was completely shut off power to our house, with some empty promise to send somebody over tomorrow. Damn dog.
Sophie smiled. Sam had always been a strong personality. She acted like a cranky old woman but was really a kind-hearted person. Jamie used to call her his ‘old trout’.
Sophie flipped a couple of pages forward. The entries were shorter.
Power is still
