Memento mori, Canis familiaris: A Scene at Three Corners.

The springtime grass is slowly greening as two female twenty-somethings stand in their mismatched scrubs; one in teal pants and a floral top, the other in a violent mish-mash of polka dots and pink. Flower Girl is smoking a cigarette and keeping dirty-blonde hair out of her eyes with the help of a glorified rubber band. Dottie's reading a dime novel through thick-rimmed glasses worthy of a nerd-rock superstar. Neither of them speak or look at one another, though there are only fifteen feet between them in the field behind the brick animal hospital where they've chosen to set their stage. Their left hands both hold leashes, one more element that binds the two unlikely co-conspirators. It's a snapshot worth a fortune to the right man.

A dog at the end of each leather strap paces until it tugs, then turns around and does the same in the opposite direction. These pets are clearly as medicated as their over-anxious owners sitting in the waiting room or on a beach in Bermuda. One of them wears a twitching beard, a terrier of some sort that'd almost look dignified if not for its nervous condition. The other's an unidentifiable mutt, the kind that'd loyally walk the kids to school if the parents didn't drive them to the bus stop every morning instead. Neither canine appears willing to squat and see to the duty that requires the hiring and bi-weekly payment of the two aloof girls too ashamed to lock eyes. We all die wasting time, and vice versa.

Uncaring, the reluctant employees remain relatively still, silently reveling in the fact that they're paid by the hour, not by the turd. Flowergirl-turned-perpetual-bridesmaid-who's-never-going-to-throw-the-backwards-bouquet-if-she-keeps-it-up-like-this takes a deep drag on her extra long menthol, an ex-boyfriend in the back of her brain working his way down into her lungs. The Bookworm tries to turn the page, one-handed, and drops her distraction of choice to the super-fertilized lawn, innocently oblivious to the fact that she's becoming quasi-fiction in the process.

(Billy's "Merely Players" speech comes to mind. That poor Danish prince was doomed from the start. Other than the crazy woman who does the world a favor by ridding it of her shadow it's the only thing in the script that's half-believable; even that's redundant to anyone who's faired enough flawed friendships and been blinded by the sun more than would like to be admitted for the sake of being the fool. Yorick, you ain't missing much.)

The light turns green, the observing deity pivots His right foot from the brake to the rubbed-raw accelerator while wanting the Smoking Girl's number and the Reader's hand in marriage, and the intersection of the creatures' Venn diagram is made clear: All three are waiting for shit to happen; all five feel trapped by present circumstances.

There. I'm finished. What have you done to realize your dream today?