III
Even administrators must rest. Observe the scene of me asleep, upside down, unfolded like a complicated letter. People laugh when they see me like this, but I assure you, nothing is comic here. Only in this position can one stretch the hips and spine properly, preparing the body for another day of exercise. No wonder humans collapse with hernias and crooked backs—they lie down stiff as clerks at their desks, never daring to turn over. If only they slept like us dogs.
Sleep for a dog is as important—if not more important—than any other activity. It is not idleness but quiet repair: dreams defragment the day, arrange the bones in alphabetical order, and remove the sorrow of being forbidden to chew a ball in the house. The paws twitch, yes, but they are not chasing rabbits. That is what humans imagine. In reality I am recalculating routes, rebalancing loyalties, revising the eternal question of whether the postman is foe or ally, and resupplying on energy. The most valuable resource for humans and dogs alike.
Can you imagine how tiring it is to distribute happiness and joy to the humans around me? Unless you are a dog, you cannot. Cats pretend to know, but their arrogance spoils the illusion. They sit apart, expecting worship, like idle landlords too lazy to work their own land. I, Rolex, cannot afford such luxury. My duty is heavier: to go forth, to wag away sorrow, to erase frowns even in the middle of the night, or while my people are cooking—especially while they are cooking. A philosopher may speak of love; I practice it in the kitchen.
When I wake, the world is again acceptable: sofas where I left them, humans greeting me with disproportionate joy, as though I had been missing for days, and breakfast a philosophical certainty. Their delight is always the same, as if my sleep were a voyage and my waking a homecoming; always an event in their calendar, never in mine.
And yet, no matter the calendar—be it Gregorian or the Eternal Calendar of Walks—the sun follows no proper schedule. I sleep while it shines, wake while it shines, and yet when I go for walks the sun has already vanished. Can no one teach it duty? It dozes like a fat pensioner on a bench, basking smugly, while I keep the order of the household. And so we endure: its negligence, the noise of machines, and the incomprehensible rules of men—grumbling, stretching, yet obeying all the same.