Behold my kingly words. There is power to my blood, and mountains move with my bark. But the very idea of my being – and this idea alone – is like an eagle in the wind. I have become something greater than myself.
These are the letters of a dying man. I have tasted comfort and fortune beyond belief, and my lips have known bliss. Still, when my eyes close at night, I can smell the cigarette smoke that once colored my fur with the faint yellow of tar. I was born the messiah, mashiach, in a town dead of industry and dead of movement. I was no carpenter, but what I built eclipsed even the tallest skyscrapers. I am the state of nature; I am the intersection of free will and sinlessness. There is no man like me.
Vanity of vanities. The pointlessness of it all. These myths I escaped like the poverty of a disconnected trailer. And in the fog of the night, truth still shined through with the fullness of a November moon. Vanity of vanities, and the pointlessness of it all.
He spoke of empires and their fall, of gods and their birth. But truly, truly, I say to you, that he and I are one and more, that death is life, and first is last. There is irreparable honor in the ashes of rusty shame and bloody guilt, and it is priced like California gold. With the hunger of my stomach and the wag of my tail, I dart between echelons like the roaches in this apartment. Past and future are as fleeting as the wind; the eternalness of the present centers all.
You will never know peace like the last breath of a friend in your arms.
I am Charles, King of the Labradors. I speak to God like I am talking to a friend.