Chapter 11: Killing Derby

So how should I go about killing Derby?

I don’t really want to kill him, but I guess by now I’m committed to it.

I’m sitting in my apartment and the sofa’s too bright and the Edvard Munch print on my wall is all blurry because I’m crying. What kind of cruel world is it that forces me to kill my own dog?

I’m sitting on the sofa, and the rabbits are filling my head with their cruel, bright laughter.

Haha, they say.

Do it, Fred. Do it. Kick her head in.

Derby’s a him.

Kick HIS head in, then.

I hate these fucking bunnies. It’s their fault I even have to do this — kill Derby. They’re making me do it, making me murder my favorite pet just to cover their asses. Which is crazy; I’m killing the dog I made up to protect the anonymity of the rabbits living in my head. Tell me that ain’t fucked up.

What’s even more fucked up? I always wanted a dog; I never wanted the rabbits.

Tell me that ain’t irony.

Chapter 13: Derby Dies — The Redacted Version

Wait ... what was I thinking? I could never show that to Dr. Marcy. What would she think of me? 

Killing my dog? She’ll think I’m a psycho. That I have some serious issues.

I don’t want her to think I'm a psycho. I don't want her to think I have some serious issues. She’d have me institutionalized or something. Put me on tranquilizers. I’d end up like that Big Chief guy in One Flew Over theCuckoo’s Nest.

No, I need something else. Something more reasonable. Something more sane. I scribble out the entire passage. Crumple the paper up. Toss it at the trashcan.

Instead, I write:

One night it was cold and snowing. Derby didn’t get in bed with me like he usually did. I got out of bed and looked all through the house, but I couldn’t find him. I called his name.

Derby!

Derby!

Here boy! 

He didn’t come.

The next morning, Dad decided that Derby must have gotten out. He must have run away.

I never saw him again.

Chapter 15: How to Make a Sky

Dr. Marcy holds the paper. It’s creased into sections from where I folded it up to shove in my pocket.

“Hmmm …” she says.

She clears her throat. Scratches the back of the page with a fingernail.

“Well, Fred, I’d hoped you would open up a little more. You know, about the experience.”

“But that’s what happened.”

“Yes, I understand that, but we need to explore the incident. How did it make you feel to lose Derby?”

“Shitty.”

“Yes, well, I assumed as much. But can you elaborate on that? How does ‘shitty’ make you feel? Define ‘shitty’ for me.”

“Hmm … well, it’s just … kind of shitty.”

My homework this week: define “shitty.”

X

Instead of defining “shitty,” I decide to show Dr. Marcy how much I am learning about painting. My Bob Ross lessons are really paying off, and I want her to know that.

I crack open a Pabst Blue Ribbon and I write:

HOW TO MAKE A SKY

To make a sky what you do is take a tube of phthalo blue paint. Squeeze some of the paint out onto your palette. Don’t be too sparing about it. Get a nice, big dollop, mix it around and pull some of it across the palette with your brush.

Okay, now, once you’ve done that, you want to take your brush and tap it against the paint. Nice and gentle. This will ensure an even distribution of paint though the bristles. After all, you don’t want to get any blue smears across your sky. You don't want any unintended jet streams — blue wads of air for clouds to trip over.

Now, once the brush is ready, you want to take it and cover the canvas with crisscrossing strokes. Tiny little crisscrossing strokes filling the canvas out to the corners.

Just go at it, marking out the blank white space, making something out of the destruction of nothing. 

Yeah, that's it! Just make nice, tiny little crisscrossing strokes with which you will construct the heavens ... like God would have done it if he’d been working with oils instead of light and clay. There is no land to inhibit you yet. No mountains or trees or happy little rivers to block your view or hold you down. At this point, the sky goes on forever with no skyline to cut it in half. It's just you and the canvas and a brush and phthalo-blue expanses to swim through forever. Like a bubble adrift in boundless, breathless air, you paint.