Ah, we meet again, friend. Thanks for always making the time to stop by for a visit.

You know, I put something aside for you because I knew you'd be coming in today.

Hmm, let's see.

Yes.

There you are.

It may not look like much. On the surface, it seems like a regular old tablespoon.

But oh, the unimaginable darkness it has seen.

I call this one pieces.

Welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings and odd goings on.

The and odd goings on. ...and odd goings on. The first time, he only took a tooth.

I was six years old, and our dog Harley, the Labrador Collie Cross was dying.

He lay on her couch, head in my mother's lap, whining in his sleep.

We had taken him to the vet that morning.

I remember sitting in the waiting room, holding my rolled-up comic, and trying to hear the muffled voices on my mother and the vet through the door.

She told me years later that they offered to put Harley down, but she couldn't go through with it.

He had been with us all my life.

I had no siblings and never knew my

father. The three of us were all the family had ever known. I prayed for Harley that night,

you know, the way a child does. Did you ever do that? Not to anyone or anything specific.

Certainly not to God. We were religious at all. I just prayed,

generally, to anyone or anything that would listen, whispered words undercovers. I thought it was

something people did when they needed help, you know. Didn't really understand. I often wonder if this is how it all began,

...