Today in real time there was a genuine, muthatrucking goddamn triple toe loop quadruple axle of a miracle that happened. Gustavo is not dead. He is alive.

He is in bad shape, I will tell the tale later. But suffice to say, he got took in the woods by coyotes in an ambush, he vanished without a trace or sound, and he lived to tell the tale. I pronounced him dead because we searched and searched, but knew what happens to little guys in jaws of coyotes. How a little guy like him survives being took into the brambles by a coyote I do not know.

He made his way out, went to the Waldorf School, where the excellent 8th graders found him. They called me, I got him to the emergency vet, and he has a very good prognosis to survive his injuries. They include puncture wounds around his head and neck, broken ribs, bruised lung, something messed up about his liver, infection of gasses in soft tissue near his chest, corneal ulcers on his eye, something wrong with his other eye, and there might be others I forgot. I usually take notes. But I couldn’t this time.

It’s been a bad couple days. I went from living in real life bad dream to one where my life turned into a miracle. I need a beer. My friend Tammy sent me a whole refrigerator full as a condolence card, but I was too sad to drink them. Now I’m going to go raise a glass to the genuine fact of real life miracles that can happen even to someone like me and Gustavo.