Free Dogs of Orninica by Daniel Unedo Page B

neighborhood. It's as good a life as anyone can ask for, really. It's not like I'm a starving Nureongi sneaking around a forest trying to catch a squirrel to feed her hungry litter. For all intents and purposes, I'm living the Orninican dream, and I'm thankful, really.
    But just between you and me, I always thought there'd be... I don't know. Just something more, you know? I just don't feel complete somehow. Honestly, it's a good thing that I'm so busy everyday, or I'd think about it a lot more, and it would probably leave me in tears.
    It's so foolish really, it's not like I can put my finger on what exactly is missing from my life. On paper, I have everything. And Bib is always happy, he has his fantasies of a perfect future to hold him over. But when I take off my iYglass and collapse into bed at the end of the day, in those two minutes before I fall asleep and the dream-inducer kicks in, I think, can this really be all there is? Is this the life we were always meant to live? We only ever get to talk through text messages really, and it's always about the pups or the bills. Were our parents lives this loony?
    I don't know if you remember this, but before I went to college, I spent my last summer working on a farm while you were traveling the tropics. It was really tedious work, just pulling weeds, planting seeds, spreading fertilizer, picking vegetables. But I had so much time to think. After a few days, I got into a rhythm and the work was pretty much automatic, and I could just spend all day daydreaming while I worked. Of course, that was before iYglass. But it felt so right somehow, I don't know how to explain it. My hands in the dirt, the sun shining on me, birds singing, and all my thoughts filled with wondrous anticipation for my adult life that was about to start. Kept in great shape, too, without even trying.
    I'm not saying I wish we lived on a farm, I can't imagine the kind of dull lifestyle farmers must have, but I don't know, there has to be something I can do where I can feel as good as I felt working on that farm, but still get to keep the house, the pricey gadgets, the fake boobs and the fancy shoes, you know?
    I'm still using the iYglass 6 when the new model has been out for almost a year now. It's getting pretty embarrassing. Hopefully we'll be able to trade up soon or everyone is going to think we're broke. The pups got the iY7 free from their school, so that's one less thing we have to worry about affording.
    It's good that the government is spending our tax money on things that are actually useful for a change. They spent a couple years building this bridge downtown, that doesn't even go anywhere. You drive across it and there's nothing there but the back of a building, not even a door or anything, and you just have to do a u-turn to get back to the road. It's kind of freaky.
    I guess they've got to keep the construction crews busy somehow. But if you don't know any better, and you go on the bridge and there are other cars behind you, there's no space to turn around and you're basically stuck. I was passing by the other day and they were using a crane to get cars out of there. I think they closed the bridge since then. It's too bad they couldn't have had those construction guys renovate our kitchen for free instead. But life isn't fair, is it?
    I hope that when we do finally finish paying off the house, we won't be too old to live in it. I don't want to have to move into a nursing home while we're still paying the mortgage every month, that would be depressing.
    Bib keeps talking about how he wants us to buy a holiday home somewhere near the beach in a couple of years. It would be great for the pups to get to go swimming all summer long, they'd get a lot more exercise than they do now. He thinks we can get a really good deal too, now that the banks have such low interest rates for second home mortgages. It would be really amazing, laying in a hammock on the deck, listening to the waves. Okay, I know we