The Prince
—
Casey Jo Graham Welmers
OUR INFATUATION WITH THE PUDGY CHIHUAHUA at the beach starts innocently enough. You spot him first—a small feisty figurehead, tucked like a talisman between the ankles of his owner as she pilots her paddle board along the shore. He barks at everything: seagulls, other dogs, an errant wave. We overhear his name, cooed in a lilting Latin accent - Ira. It simply won’t do. He is a regal beagle, ferried around like diamonds and gold. Precious cargo. We call him “The Prince.”
It’s hard to capture a good picture of him given the distance, the glare of the sun, the light bending off the water. When we finally get our shot we’re in stitches over the result. What a good boi he is! We zoom in on his face, tiny charcoal eyes and nose smooshed into a furry head. This is how we freeze him in time, a bug in amber. We crop the image, save it too our phones, keep pulling it up and laughing. The Prince has struck our funny bones so fierce they’re still buzzing with the reverb.
We text each other this image of The Prince back and forth at all hours of the day and sometimes night, because The Prince is now an appropriate response to everything. We wonder what he’s up to, if his owner is Spanish or Italian. Maybe she’s Portuguese and tells him how doce he is. In your best Sam Elliot voice you quote “The Big Lebowski.” It’s good knowing he’s out there… taking it easy for all us sinners. Of course you’re not talking about The Dude. I chortle my response, The Prince abides!
For your birthday, I send a photo of The Prince to one of those online sites that transfers photos to canvas. When the 8×8 arrives, I hang it above our kitchen window. My voice jumps an octave and my hands flutter like dead leaves in anticipation of your surprise. When you discover the new wall art, your laughter is explosive. We point and screech. Behold, the king of small dogs. All hail The Prince! we proclaim, tucking into our spaghetti, barely able to control the spits of laughter that interrupt our mastication. Tomato sauce speckles the table. You knock over your water. The Prince watches from the wall.
The word hysterical is rooted in hysteria and there is a reason for this.
Things escalate fast. You buy t-shirts adorned with The Prince that we wear often and in public. I buy you a throw pillow screen-printed with his likeness, and you one-up me with a decorative throw. The image is so blown-up that his eyes and nose are the size of my fists. I wrap myself in the blanket and proclaim myself “The Prince Burrito.” The fabric feels suffocating. Even so, I burrow further into the folds. Soon, our entire text thread is absent any letters or numbers, GIF’s or emojis. The image of The Prince is the only thing we text back and forth, our shared canine god. He is Anubis, we his humble acolytes.
Our home life becomes largely silent except for when it’s not. We wolf down our food and yet another image of The Prince is revealed on our dinner plates, enshrined in Earthenware, smudged with curry sauce. The air ripples with our sharp, jittery laughter. There he is! We cackle, shake, clap our trembling hands. He’s on the cups that we drink from and the napkins we use to dab our tears. There are so many tears. Every time we laugh our eyes leak; tiny, helpless oceans. We’ve emblazoned The Prince across the common objects of our domestic life: magnets, bottle openers, socks that illicit a red bumpy rash. When I try to remove mine you snarl at me and swat my hand, tugging the synthetic material further up above my itchy ankles. I retreat to my side of the bed, turn thrice, curl into a ball.
At night we creep around the house on all fours, pant, whimper at the Hunter’s Moon. We light prayer candles adorned with The Prince as a saint, his background a thorny, bleeding heart. I once was taught by a nun that had a real penchant for harping on the Second Commandment, something about worshipping false idols and all that. What did she know. We sit on our haunches and stare at the flickering flames, The Prince illuminated by fire. Save us, we pray. Save us from ourselves. •
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Casey Jo Graham Welmers may or may not have a picture of a chihuahua in her kitchen. Find her most current words in Hobart, HAD, and Farewell Transmission, and more at caseyjo.carrd.co
Website | Twitter | Instagram
It’s hard to capture a good picture of him given the distance, the glare of the sun, the light bending off the water. When we finally get our shot we’re in stitches over the result. What a good boi he is! We zoom in on his face, tiny charcoal eyes and nose smooshed into a furry head. This is how we freeze him in time, a bug in amber. We crop the image, save it too our phones, keep pulling it up and laughing. The Prince has struck our funny bones so fierce they’re still buzzing with the reverb.
We text each other this image of The Prince back and forth at all hours of the day and sometimes night, because The Prince is now an appropriate response to everything. We wonder what he’s up to, if his owner is Spanish or Italian. Maybe she’s Portuguese and tells him how doce he is. In your best Sam Elliot voice you quote “The Big Lebowski.” It’s good knowing he’s out there… taking it easy for all us sinners. Of course you’re not talking about The Dude. I chortle my response, The Prince abides!
For your birthday, I send a photo of The Prince to one of those online sites that transfers photos to canvas. When the 8×8 arrives, I hang it above our kitchen window. My voice jumps an octave and my hands flutter like dead leaves in anticipation of your surprise. When you discover the new wall art, your laughter is explosive. We point and screech. Behold, the king of small dogs. All hail The Prince! we proclaim, tucking into our spaghetti, barely able to control the spits of laughter that interrupt our mastication. Tomato sauce speckles the table. You knock over your water. The Prince watches from the wall.
The word hysterical is rooted in hysteria and there is a reason for this.
Things escalate fast. You buy t-shirts adorned with The Prince that we wear often and in public. I buy you a throw pillow screen-printed with his likeness, and you one-up me with a decorative throw. The image is so blown-up that his eyes and nose are the size of my fists. I wrap myself in the blanket and proclaim myself “The Prince Burrito.” The fabric feels suffocating. Even so, I burrow further into the folds. Soon, our entire text thread is absent any letters or numbers, GIF’s or emojis. The image of The Prince is the only thing we text back and forth, our shared canine god. He is Anubis, we his humble acolytes.
Our home life becomes largely silent except for when it’s not. We wolf down our food and yet another image of The Prince is revealed on our dinner plates, enshrined in Earthenware, smudged with curry sauce. The air ripples with our sharp, jittery laughter. There he is! We cackle, shake, clap our trembling hands. He’s on the cups that we drink from and the napkins we use to dab our tears. There are so many tears. Every time we laugh our eyes leak; tiny, helpless oceans. We’ve emblazoned The Prince across the common objects of our domestic life: magnets, bottle openers, socks that illicit a red bumpy rash. When I try to remove mine you snarl at me and swat my hand, tugging the synthetic material further up above my itchy ankles. I retreat to my side of the bed, turn thrice, curl into a ball.
At night we creep around the house on all fours, pant, whimper at the Hunter’s Moon. We light prayer candles adorned with The Prince as a saint, his background a thorny, bleeding heart. I once was taught by a nun that had a real penchant for harping on the Second Commandment, something about worshipping false idols and all that. What did she know. We sit on our haunches and stare at the flickering flames, The Prince illuminated by fire. Save us, we pray. Save us from ourselves. •
Casey Jo Graham Welmers may or may not have a picture of a chihuahua in her kitchen. Find her most current words in Hobart, HAD, and Farewell Transmission, and more at caseyjo.carrd.co
Website | Twitter | Instagram