Chapter XXVII: The Strange and Unfortunate History of P. Lootoh C. Razy, the Rat, and the Burden Carried by Goopheek (Part 2)

The people of Dissmey often debated whether P. Lootoh was fortunate or unfortunate, though it must be noted that these debates were usually conducted by individuals who had never once considered asking P. Lootoh himself. This was not due to any deliberate cruelty on their part. Rather, it was simply because the citizens of Dissmey had a long-standing tradition of discussing the lives of others in great detail while rarely interrupting the process with inconvenient information from the person actually experiencing those lives.

Such habits were considered perfectly normal.

In fact, several of the kingdom's most respected scholars had built entire careers upon explaining the thoughts, desires, and motivations of creatures who had never been consulted on the matter. The practice was especially common among philosophers, who had discovered long ago that the difficulty of obtaining an answer from someone was often directly proportional to how interesting the answer would become once invented.

P. Lootoh, unfortunately for the philosophers, was extremely easy to invent answers for.

If a scholar wished to portray him as a misunderstood genius trapped within the mind of a simple creature, there was enough evidence to support the theory. P. Lootoh did, after all, occasionally stare into the distance for several minutes at a time with an expression so serious that even experienced observers found themselves wondering what great thoughts might be passing through his mind.

The answer, according to witnesses who had investigated the matter, was usually a sandwich.

This discovery did little to discourage the scholars.

If anything, it encouraged them.

A great thinker could apparently contemplate a sandwich just as easily as a star if enough people were willing to assign meaning afterward.

Others within Dissmey took the opposite view. They argued that P. Lootoh was not secretly wise or deeply philosophical. They argued that perhaps a dog who spent three hours chasing a leaf across a field was simply a dog chasing a leaf across a field and that perhaps the kingdom had developed a strange habit of turning ordinary events into complicated discussions because ordinary events made for disappointing conversations.

These people were generally ignored.

Not because they were wrong.

Being correct, unfortunately, has never guaranteed popularity.

The truth was that P. Lootoh existed somewhere between all these interpretations. He was neither the mystical creature described in expensive books nor the complete burden described by frustrated neighbors whose gardens had suffered repeated invasions. He was simply P. Lootoh, and like many creatures throughout history, he was far more complicated than the categories created to describe him.

This fact caused considerable inconvenience.

Categories are useful because they allow people to understand things quickly. They become troublesome when the things being categorized refuse to remain still long enough to fit inside them.

P. Lootoh was particularly talented at refusing to remain still.

On warm afternoons, he could often be found wandering through the streets of Dissmey with the confidence of a creature who had never once considered whether he was welcome. He moved through marketplaces, alleys, and gardens with the same enthusiasm regardless of whether he was being invited somewhere or actively removed from somewhere.

The merchants eventually developed a system.

When P. Lootoh entered a shop, the owner would first attempt polite encouragement.

Then stronger encouragement.

Then, after several failed attempts, the owner would simply accept that the afternoon's events had taken an unexpected turn and adjust accordingly.

This method proved far more effective than arguing.

Nobody had ever successfully won an argument against a dog that did not understand the argument was occurring.

The baker of northern Dissmey was among the first to discover this. After losing an entire tray of freshly prepared pastries to P. Lootoh during a particularly ambitious morning visit, he reportedly spent three hours explaining the economic consequences of such behavior while P. Lootoh sat nearby wagging his tail.

The baker later admitted that the dog appeared extremely interested. Whether P. Lootoh understood anything beyond the possibility that the baker possessed additional food remains a subject of debate. The incident eventually became one of the kingdom's favorite stories. Not because of the pastries, which were eventually replaced, but because of the lesson citizens believed it contained.

Naturally, they disagreed entirely on what that lesson was. Some believed it demonstrated the importance of patience. Others believed it demonstrated the dangers of leaving unattended pastries near the ground. A particularly enthusiastic group believed it demonstrated the hidden intelligence of P. Lootoh and spent several months attempting to determine whether he had intentionally created the situation as a form of social commentary.

The baker refused to participate in that theory as he rather simply request his reimbursement. This request was considered by many citizens to be unusually practical and therefore somewhat suspicious.

Practicality had always been viewed with a certain level of distrust throughout Dissmey. It lacked the emotional satisfaction of a grand explanation. It did not provide anyone with a heroic role. It did not allow people to gather in large groups and congratulate themselves for possessing excellent moral awareness.

It simply solved the problem and solving problems directly was often considered a little boring.

This was one of the reasons P. Lootoh's story continued for so many years. He represented something the people of Dissmey found both fascinating and frustrating. He was a problem everyone could see, a responsibility everyone could discuss, and a situation that somehow became more complicated every time more people attempted to explain it.

Eventually, as all complicated matters in Dissmey tended to do, the story of P. Lootoh reached the attention of someone with enough wealth, influence, and confidence to believe he could provide the answer everyone else had failed to find.

That someone was Mi-Ki, but before Mi-Ki entered the story of P. Lootoh, the kingdom first had to understand one simple fact. Mi-Ki did not merely solve problems, but collected them.

By this point the reader has perhaps begun wondering why an entire chapter has thus far concerned itself with a dog who, despite attracting the attention of philosophers, scholars, merchants, gardeners, and at least one deeply offended baker, has accomplished remarkably little beyond wandering about the kingdom in search of food and opportunities to inconvenience respectable citizens.

Such curiosity is understandable. It is also precisely why this history must be told carefully. Entire civilizations have collapsed because people insisted upon beginning their stories too late.

The unfortunate habit of introducing a catastrophe without first introducing the ordinary world that allowed it to become possible has deprived countless generations of otherwise excellent history. Readers are shown the fire but never the dry timber. The collapse but never the years spent quietly removing the foundations one stone at a time. Historians, particularly the lazy ones, are especially guilty of this offense. We shall not make the same mistake.

To understand Mi-Ki, one must first understand that P. Lootoh was never truly the subject of the kingdom's fascination. He was merely the excuse.

What fascinated Dissmey was itself. The kingdom had developed an almost theatrical admiration for its own compassion. Every act of kindness became a public performance, every generous gesture another opportunity for the audience to applaud both the actor and itself for recognizing such admirable behavior. This should not be interpreted too harshly. Most kingdoms eventually develop similar habits if left unattended for sufficient generations. Dissmey merely refined the practice into something approaching an art form.

It was not uncommon for three neighbors to spend an entire afternoon discussing how desperately a fourth neighbor required assistance, while simultaneously congratulating one another for caring so deeply about the matter. By sunset everyone involved would return home feeling considerably better about themselves, despite the unfortunate circumstance that the fourth neighbor continued requiring exactly the same assistance as before.

Nobody considered this hypocrisy. They called it community. The annual Festival of Shared Compassion provides an excellent illustration.

Every spring the citizens gathered in the town square to celebrate the kingdom's generosity. Speeches were delivered. Songs were sung. Children released colorful balloons into the sky, all while merchants sold commemorative pastries bearing inspirational slogans written in decorative icing. One particularly enthusiastic choir once performed a forty-three minute anthem entitled Together We Care , though several eyewitnesses later admitted they had quietly stopped caring approximately twelve minutes into the performance.

The festival concluded each year with the ceremonial ringing of the Great Bell of Fellowship. Nobody remembers who first suggested building the bell. Even fewer remember paying for it. The important thing, everyone agreed, was what the bell represented. Precisely what it represented depended entirely upon whom one happened to ask.

P. Lootoh attended the festival every year. Not because he appreciated its symbolism, but because someone invariably dropped sausage.

He became something of an unofficial mascot for the celebration. Children rushed toward him with laughter while their parents smiled approvingly from a safe distance, grateful that someone else's child had chosen to pet him first. Painters occasionally included his likeness in commemorative murals despite the unfortunate fact that P. Lootoh rarely remained still long enough to resemble himself by the time the painting had been completed.

He did not understand why everyone smiled when they saw him. He simply wagged his tail. Perhaps that was the most honest thing occurring anywhere in the town square. The older citizens would often leave the festival convinced that they had participated in something profoundly meaningful. They spoke of unity during the walk home, of kindness over supper, and of the remarkable character possessed by the people of Dissmey before retiring to bed thoroughly satisfied that they belonged to a kingdom unlike any other.

The following morning they resumed arguing over property lines, unpaid debts, noisy neighbors, and whose chickens had once again wandered where they plainly ought not to have wandered. Life, historians have frequently observed, possesses an extraordinary talent for returning to itself once the speeches have concluded.

It was during one such festival, while P. Lootoh busied himself beneath a pastry cart searching for crumbs with all the determination of a seasoned archaeologist excavating ancient ruins, that another pair of eyes happened to notice him.Not the passing sort of notice one gives an amusing dog. The measured sort. The sort belonging to someone who believed every problem eventually presented itself disguised as an opportunity.

Mi-Ki had finally arrived...

Had one asked any citizen of Dissmey exactly when Mi-Ki himself had arrived, one would have received as many different answers as there were people willing to answer the question. Some insisted he had always been there. Others claimed they could still remember the days before his smiling face appeared upon every other storefront throughout the kingdom, though they found themselves increasingly unable to convince anyone younger than fifty that such an age had ever truly existed.

Memory is a peculiar thing.

It has never been especially fond of competing with familiarity.

There are those rare individuals who become so deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life that people eventually stop distinguishing between the man and the environment surrounding him. The clocktower eventually ceases to be noticed by those living beneath it. The old oak tree standing in the village square quietly disappears into the landscape despite having watched four generations grow old beneath its branches. It had become much the same with Mi-Ki. The kingdom had spent so many years looking at him that it had unknowingly stopped seeing him altogether.

That, historians would later suggest, may have been his greatest accomplishment. Not his wealth, influence or popularity. For a man constantly standing before everyone eventually becomes invisible to them all.

The Festival of Shared Compassion illustrated this better than any scholar ever could. The musicians did not begin playing because Mi-Ki requested it. They simply found themselves choosing livelier melodies after noticing him crossing the square. The pastry merchants arranged their displays a little more carefully whenever word spread that he might attend.

Even the mayor, whose office technically outranked every merchant within the kingdom, possessed the curious habit of straightening his jacket whenever Mi-Ki wandered into conversation, whether Mi-Ki himself happened to be present or not. None of these things had ever been written into law. Nobody had voted upon them. No decree required them. The kingdom had simply practiced them for so many years that custom eventually accomplished what authority never could.

Power rarely announces itself wearing a crown. More often it arrives smiling, shaking hands, remembering names, and asking after your mother's arthritis. Mi-Ki possessed that sort of power. Not the kind that frightened people, but the kind that made them feel strangely grateful for having been noticed.

One could scarcely walk twenty paces beside him without witnessing someone wave enthusiastically from across the street.

"Mi-Ki!"

"The very same, oho" he would answer with a smile broad enough to convince the other fellow that no place in the kingdom would have pleased him more than that exact conversation.

A florist thanked him for remembering the names of her grandchildren. A carpenter laughed about an old joke they had shared nearly six years earlier. A young mother proudly introduced the newest addition to her family despite Mi-Ki having already congratulated her two weeks before.

Whether he genuinely remembered every face remains uncertain. It hardly mattered because the people believed he did. Belief, throughout history, has frequently accomplished what truth never managed.

Children adored him for reasons children seldom bother explaining. They ran circles around him with sticky hands and missing teeth, convinced beyond all argument that Mi-Ki knew every game worth playing and every story worth hearing. Their parents looked on with approving smiles, quietly relieved that their children had attached themselves to someone respectable for the afternoon rather than chasing P. Lootoh through another merchant's vegetable stall.

The older citizens admired him differently. They admired his consistency. Year after year Mi-Ki appeared exactly where everyone expected him to appear. He attended the festivals. He funded repairs after storms. He shook the proper hands, smiled the proper smile, and somehow always managed to occupy precisely the place the kingdom expected him to occupy.

Reliability is among the easiest virtues to mistake for greatness. Perhaps that is why so few people noticed that Mi-Ki possessed another habit entirely. Whenever crowds celebrated, he observed. Whenever speeches were delivered, he listened. Whenever everyone else looked upward toward banners, balloons, fireworks, or ringing bells... Mi-Ki looked downward toward the things everyone else had forgotten to notice, and beneath a pastry cart, blissfully unaware that the most influential citizen in all of Dissmey had spent the better part of five minutes quietly watching him excavate crumbs with the determination of an archaeologist uncovering a lost civilization... P. Lootoh C. Crazy was there in his continued search for dropped sausage.

He had no idea history had just stopped to watch him. Nor, for that matter, did he care. He had found half of one.

No one paid much attention to the fact that Mi-Ki had stopped walking. To the casual observer he appeared to be doing precisely what everyone else at the festival was doing: enjoying the music, exchanging pleasantries, and smiling politely whenever someone insisted upon introducing a cousin, nephew, or second aunt who simply had to meet him. Such encounters occupied much of Mi-Ki's public life. Entire families seemed convinced that history itself would feel incomplete if their relatives were not personally acknowledged by the kingdom's most recognizable citizen.

Mi-Ki never appeared to mind. He laughed exactly when laughter was expected, though never so loudly that anyone might accuse him of trying too hard. Years of public life had taught him that people rarely remembered what had been said during a conversation. They remembered how the conversation had made them feel. By the time each citizen walked away, they carried with them the quiet satisfaction of believing they had just experienced something oddly personal.

It was a remarkable talent. One that cannot easily be purchased, inherited, or taught.

Meanwhile, beneath the pastry cart, P. Lootoh had reached the sort of philosophical dilemma only a hungry dog could truly appreciate. The sausage had rolled beneath one of the cart's rear wheels.

From nearly every angle it appeared obtainable. Reality, unfortunately, had reached a different conclusion. The unfortunate mutt approached from the left. Nothing. He circled to the right. Still nothing. Lowering himself onto his stomach with admirable determination, he extended one paw toward the prize with all the precision of a master surgeon performing delicate work upon the human heart.

His paw struck the wheel. The sausage rolled farther inward. P. Lootoh blinked. Sat down. Considered the matter for several long seconds. Then, displaying the sort of confidence found almost exclusively among dogs and government committees, he repeated precisely the same maneuver a second time. The sausage, unfortunately and expectedly, retreated even farther away from his reaches.

Several nearby children had quietly abandoned the festival altogether. The speeches never interested them. They were too young to understand the adult life of repeating rituals that led nowhere, but knew they had to attend at some point because that's just how things have always been.

At some point even the choir no longer interested them. Even the balloons drifting lazily overhead had surrendered their entertainment value.

They had discovered something infinitely more compelling. A dog losing an argument with a sausage.

Children, unlike philosophers, generally possess excellent instincts for identifying what deserves one's attention. One little girl eventually knelt beside the cart and whispered words of encouragement as though P. Lootoh were preparing for some great athletic contest rather than an increasingly embarrassing lunch.

"You almost got it."

P. Lootoh wagged his tail.

Whether in appreciation of the encouragement or merely because someone had spoken to him in a friendly voice has never been satisfactorily determined.

Mi-Ki watched the entire performance without interruption. He did not smile. He did not laugh along with the children. His expression suggested something considerably rarer. Curiosity. Not curiosity toward the dog himself.

Anyone could become curious about an unusual dog incapable of standing up right, and unable to speak like the other dogs.

Mi-Ki was curious about something else entirely. He was watching the people. Watching the children encourage him. Watching the merchants tolerate him. Watching the mothers smile. Watching the fathers shake their heads while secretly hoping the little fool managed to retrieve his prize. Watching an entire community unconsciously rearrange itself around one peculiar creature who, by every ordinary measure, contributed almost nothing to the kingdom except inconvenience.

Most people would have seen a dog. Mi-Ki saw an arrangement, and unlike dogs, arrangements could be improved. Thus, Mi-Ki remained where he stood for some time, his attention never leaving the unfortunate mutt beneath the pastry cart.

Around him, the festival continued exactly as festivals always do. The musicians continued playing songs they had played every spring for as long as anyone could remember. Children darted between tables carrying pastries almost too large for their own white gloved hands. Merchants loudly praised the quality of their goods while quietly watching the stalls of their competitors with considerably greater interest.

Life, for all appearances, continued uninterrupted. Only Mi-Ki had become still. The pastry merchant eventually noticed him. Following the direction of Mi-Ki's gaze, he looked beneath the cart, sighed the weary sigh of a man who had already accepted that the afternoon would not unfold according to plan, and shook his head.

"Him again," the merchant muttered.

Mi-Ki did not immediately answer. Instead, he continued watching P. Lootoh, who had now abandoned all attempts at strategy and was instead lying upon his side, staring thoughtfully at the offending wheel as though expecting the sausage to eventually experience a crisis of conscience and roll back toward him of its own accord.

Hope has always been among the more admirable qualities of dogs. It has also been among the least practical.

"Oho, Does he do this often?" Mi-Ki finally asked.

The merchant laughed.

"Do what?"

"This."

The merchant looked at the dog, then back toward Mi-Ki with an expression suggesting he had just been asked whether rain occasionally became wet.

"He lives here."

Mi-Ki raised an eyebrow.

"Here?"

The merchant nodded.

"Not here, here. Everywhere here."

The explanation appeared perfectly satisfactory to the merchant, who saw no reason to elaborate further. Everyone in Dissmey already understood what he meant. P. Lootoh belonged nowhere in particular. Which had somehow resulted in him belonging everywhere. He slept wherever evening happened to discover him. Sometimes beneath a staircase. Sometimes behind the old bakery. Occasionally beneath the awning of the tailor's shop until the tailor remembered he was there. During warmer months he developed an inexplicable affection for Mrs. Bumble's rose garden despite the unfortunate fact that Mrs. Bumble had spent nearly fourteen consecutive summers insisting that he develop an affection for literally anywhere else. Neither party had ever succeeded in convincing the other.

"When he gets hungry," the merchant continued, "someone feeds him."

"And when nobody feeds him? Oho"

The merchant shrugged. "Eventually someone does."

It was spoken with the sort of confidence reserved for things nobody had ever bothered questioning. Like sunrise. Or taxes. Or ducks occupying positions of public authority.

Mi-Ki remained silent. There are moments in a man's life when a single ordinary sentence quietly rearranges the furniture inside his mind. To everyone else at the festival, the merchant had merely described a dog. Mi-Ki heard something entirely different. He heard a system. A system without an owner. Without rules or accountability, and yet...

It worked. Not perfectly and certainly not efficiently, but it worked well enough that an entire kingdom had stopped noticing it.

Mi-Ki smiled to himself, not because he pitied P. Lootoh, but because he had just discovered something far more interesting than a hungry dog. He had discovered an institution that nobody realized was an institution. Those, history has repeatedly demonstrated, are always the most powerful kind.

To be continued in part 3