His eyes are closed, clenched tight.

A drab, dimly lit warehouse. Isn’t it? Light slats in through a broken skylight. Doesn’t it? 

Only it isn’t… and it doesn’t. The “warehouse” is a crudely crafted backdrop, a diorama of construction paper and aggressive ink. The “light” feels like a dull velvet duvet hanging above a hastily prepared paper mache cage.

You’ve heard of “claymation”, haven’t you? Might be that you’ve even seen it before. Well, that’s what’s happening here: an ugly yellow dog snaps at the black, bowler-capped wraith that whips him into the cage, slamming the door behind him with a CLANG that shifts the scene.

Elsewhere. Before. Long before. A different, mayhaps equally evil clay man backhands an innocent small clay child. On terrible-impact, the scene shifts.

A time further along. Deeper. A drink is offered. Another taken. Further still. A pill is taken. Deeper.  And another. 

He blinks. Adjusts. Eyes clasped closed now. Yellow paint dripping over an eyelid.

Later. Mercifully, somewhere/somewhen else. An ugly clay young man picks up an ugly old yellow wrestling mask. Wiping a clear streak across an otherwise dirty looking-glass, he pulls the flaxen mask overhead, hoping for something more - positive adjectives on top of prominent nouns - and our scene again shifts. 

Stretching out a fat clay hand for a fat clay tag, a wonderful red man reaches across creation and MAKES IT–

A yellow streak.

Elsewhen, our ugly clay yellow-man holds a beautiful baby. She yelps out an adorable cry. At its shrieking apex, with a lumpy tear herky-jerky “rolling” down ugly’s cheek, we shift.

Deeper and further along still, in a much darker and dismal place, our ugly clay man finds himself with a needle, questioning how. But by now it’s too late. Isn’t it?

Too late. And later. The black, bowler-hatted wraith haunts and lingers and persists and invades. Smothering and enveloping like a clay blanket of death… it overtakes. The clay specter with gray unfeeling eyes tears the pulsing red heart out of our ugly yellow mutt. We shift, in a smear of notably crimson paint.

Clenching.

Our ugly clay monster leaps from a two dimensional faux arena skybox clutching an optimistic bright star under his arm. A bright light that was forever changed, a light smothered and overtaken. Clay crashes. The creeping vines of Nigel crawl around our screens periphery. Slowly choking, progressively stifling, overwhelming and strangling. More clay heroes fall, taken under. Collected. 

Somewhere along the way comes a golden man, a paragon, so incandescent he almost burns. The gold man stands tall. Amongst the few to do so. A gilded shovel glistens in a focused light. 

Our ugly yellow dog never forgets this loss and barks to let you know.

Shifting at the ARF!, we find ourselves amidst a pitched in-”ring” battle between a one-eyed fallen star and our yellow dog. Upon our mongrel’s failure, our red hero returns.

The one. 

He blinks. Tense.

The wonderful one. The red man who reached out – red hand wavering. Our yellow dog melts in place in a very claymation-type way. You can see it. Our paper mache cage door opens. You can hear it.

He can feel it.

A baby cries.

His fat clay hands wrapped around the thin black throat of the regal wraith. Dark vines wither. The yellow dog’s slavering jaws tearing into clay flesh.

He can taste it. Eyes closed firm.

The throbbing gash on our yellow dog’s chest thrums with the beat of a man’s heart. But in his mind, the golden man remains, by now the gold flecking off.The animation reflects this.

”Oscar.”

It croaks. It’s just a name. Isn’t it? No. It’s more. It’s a memory. It’s a slight our yellow dog can still hold onto. It’s a slight he can correct. 

For, at his very clay core, our wayward yellow dog longs only to own his past. 

Don’t we all?

Eyes wide.

The golden man runs. Our yellow dog gives fair chase. Running him up the wall of a cage. It rattles and shakes in our ears. 

A bright yellow - not gold -  glow smothers, overtakes, and overwhelms us. 

A lock snaps SHUT.

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