And he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame,
"I am leaving, I am leaving," but the fighter still remains.
Yes he still remains.
Li la li, li la li li---
The song was immediately cut off as a fist slammed down on its owner's alarm clock. Elizabeth Schromen rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow, wanting to drift into sleep for a few more minutes. Her bedmate, however, had other ideas, which he made very clear through grumbles and slight physical force.
When your bedmate is a 130 pound bloodhound, you listen.
"Alright, alright," Betty grumbled, rolling onto her other side. She really didn't want to get up--her skin hurt, bad, just as it had been when she woke up for the last few weeks. She really ought to call a doctor, but she felt fine once she got up and usually forgot or postponed the call. "I'm awake."
She felt the mattress bounce as her dog, a beautiful black-and-tan named Tybalt, hopped off the bed. A moment later, a pair of slippers were thrust in her face.
Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes with one hand and accepted Ty's gift with the other. "Mm... thanks, boy." She slipped them on, having long ago learned to embrace dog slobber.
Shuffling into the kitchen, she measured out Tybalt's dog food and put it in his dish, watching as he dug into it. The bowl made a grating noise as he nosed the dish around the tile; Betty had given up trying to stop his breakfast time circumnavigations. Shaking her head, she started to make coffee.
After her first cup, she was feeling much more awake and the burn under her skin had faded to an ignorable level. She let Ty loose into the small yard of their Chicagosuburb home and went to take a shower.
Twenty minutes later, with shampooed hair and brushed teeth, she went back into the yard, jingling Tybalt's leash. He abandoned the chipmunk hole he was worrying at immediately and ran toward her, happily trouncing as well as his large, awkward body would let him.
"Does Ty want a walkie?" she crooned, hooking the leash onto his collar. "Oh, yus, Ty wants a walkie! Of course he does!" She gave him a kiss on the nose before they headed out onto the sidewalk.
The sun had just finished rising as they made their way on their morning trail. Betty noticed this with despair--later dawns meant winter was that much closer. Stopping on a corner to wait for the light, she glanced at the headlines on a newspaper rack. Large, bold letters stared out at the street, proclaiming "THE MUTANT MENACE--Fact Or Fiction?--What Is The Government Doing About It?" Betty tutted softly.
"No use getting caught up in that sort of thing," she told her dog, as the light turned green. "It's so much easier to stay out."
Unfortunately for her, staying out was about to get much harder.