The Journal of Dorbin the Druid, Part 3: “Dog Days” and the Curse of UnCentral Air

The heat has settled upon us like a flame-licked denizen of the abyss. That beast of molten fury, the midsummer sun, has risen higher than Malcolm during a GoT marathon after not sharing “Dad’s special gummies, buddy.” It has arrived, relentless and slathering the land in a flotsumous jeuje of sluggish thoughts, poor skin care, and charcoalian aromas. And I, Dorbin, once-proud Cloud Caller of the Eastern Ranges, now lay defeated on a linoleum floor, panting in the manner of a leaky bellows.

Gone now are the wondrous days of spring and the promise found in the lands of Malcolm’s sister, Ann. We parted quickly, but with knowing. Her soul is unique in its sight, and I have no doubt that she and I will meet again and share that rich and simple pleasure of communing with nature in the purest.

You would think, given his fascination with screens, lights, toggles, and technology, Malcolm’s hovel would be equipped at least to combat this seasonal scourge of summer. Alas, his answer for a cooling system is an ailing amalgamation of metal cordage that all at once fails to do more than force out inconsistent queefs of ‘less hot’ air and constantly threatens to fall fully from its precarious perch inside the window.

I’ve taken refuge beneath the altar of the cold box (or “the empty-ass fridge,” as Malcolm refers to it), guarding it righteously as one would a sacred acorn or cone of pines. The heat has gotten to my dunce of a roommate. He keeps trying to close the door to the cold box, muttering incessantly about “bills and energy,” and has even given over to interrogating me with banal queries like “Why are you inside the crisper drawer?” But having found the treasure already, I know better. Discovered had I, Dorbin the Druid, the sacred vault of chilled ham slices, dozens of cheeses, and something I have deciphered to be cucumber-flavored seltzer. I shall not be moved.

In the realm of Atoria, we Druids had rituals for enduring the sun’s wrath. We began bathing in moon pools, donning robes of woven sage, and invoking the Air Nymphs with drums of amber and citrine.

In Malcolm’s domain, we have ice cubes in a metal bowl and a Fan of Oscillation (-2) that smells faintly of weevil dust and some long-forgotten soup. Every time it turns its attention to me, I feel the gods can, for a moment, see me and my plight…not the right gods, mind you…not from that smell.

In an attempt to change these climactic fortunes, I performed a water rite this morning (to the untrained eye, it was simply spilling Malcolm’s reusable water bottle onto the carpet). I circled the spill thrice, chanted briefly in my throat (a growl, for the uncharitable), and then lay in it. I think it worked. The room cooled noticeably, though it may have just been Malcolm’s mood.

Desperate times have required open rebellion in the room for living. I took to the forbidden couch.

Oh, the sweet, cool embrace of slightly soiled microfiber. The divine forgiving squish of cushions unflattened by time. I nestled into the holy crevice between backrest and arm—where no willing hand had dared venture since The Great Remote Displacement during the last rewatch of Doctor Who Season 4.

Malcolm ruined it, of course, and found me just as comfort set in. He took a disappointed posture, made all the worse by his adornment of “the socks of solitude,” a robe that, from what I can tell, is entirely antimagical in nature, and a cup of lukewarm coffee, which completed his obviously intended “pathetic and over 40” cosplay outfit.

“You know you’re not supposed to be up there,” he muttered.

Attuning to my ancient druidic stoicisms, I employed a passive resistance to the spoutings of an obviously addled man in the full throes of an episode of some sort. I sighed heavily and pretended to be asleep. Unconscious dogs can’t be scolded. That’s just science.

At dusk, when the solar terror surrenders its sway and the cicadas begin their orchestral foreplay, I spread out on any cool surface and I dream of the sanctity and shade of the wood. Deep forests where the light filters through a thousand leaves. Rolling flora, where giant elk tread proudly through ceaseless crystal streams and leap over massive protruding roots of trees older than the first secrets.

In this house, the closest I get is the back deck, where Malcolm joyfully chars animals on a metal altar and calls it grilling. I take my place beneath the small green table that he overloads with items, grappling soulfully with my desire for a fallen hot dog (a name, I assume, is meant to intimidate me as he shovels them in his face) and whispering my thanks to the smoky wind that fills my superior olfactory senses with promise and the rest of me with a cooling respite. Ever so humble, it’s a shrine…and as such, is sacred nonetheless.

There are moments in this life, a life of infernal furry domestication and woe, when I can only weep at my circumstances and bemoan my lot. An unfitting punishment for a life lived promoting the highest levels of harmonic peace. I sink so low that it betrays my stoic canine visage, and I am accused of being “A Pouty Pants Boy.” (A vile slander, for which I will have justice.)

And then Malcolm drops an ice cube, and I chase it across the tile with divine purpose, and I think… yes. This, too, is a kind of magic.

The world has changed, but the sun still burns. Life still breathes beneath it. And a druid’s duty, no matter the form, is to walk gently, speak with the grass, listen to the wind, and rip a couch cushion to 78,432 individual pieces for no reason…no reason at all.

—Dorbin

Former Archdruid of Atoria

Currently: Melting Into the Shape of a Rug