The year is 1999 Meet Jack, a hard working middle-class American male. Jack had a family and a second arm….that is until he discovered how to travel through time and space.

You see, Jack thought he was being a kind and generous man by stepping up and adopting a dog from the shelter. Confident and full of pride he asked for the next dog to tie, he didn’t care what it looked like. Jack was going to save a life.

Jack took the crazy-eyed grey dog home. His children loved it, and his wife was proud of her man. For exactly 10 hours Jack’s life was perfect. That night, walking his new dog everything changed. While squatting over the neighbors tulips the dog spoke. Now most people know that dog’s do not talk. Jack did not need reminding of this, he like the rest of the world, knew dogs do not talk.

Now thinking himself unique, Jack named his shelter pup Cornelius, due to his wizened and somewhat haggard look. When Cornelius spoke Jack knew he gave his dog the right name. A hoarse and somewhat reverent voice articulated from Cornelius’ mouth. “I’m Sorry to do this to you Jack, but we’ve got to go back!”

Wrestling with the 80′s reference that immediately came to mind Jack blinked back to reality. He pulled tightly at the leash around Cornelius’ neck thinking the dog had been taking too long to expel waste and as such had resulted in Jack hallucinating.

Cornelius yelped and then growled. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you Jack!” The dog’s eyes lit up and in a flash Jack was not where he was. Rather, Jack was in a bar, it smelled like a bar anyways. To Jack’s relief there was someone right next to him. A blonde young man wearing what seemed to be a bath robe too small for him with white jeggings and a batman utility belt.

Dismissing the stranger’s appearance he nudged him, albeit a little too hard, and spoke. “Gruuuhuuuhuhhhh”. Jack didn’t understand what he was hearing. He had meant to say “Hey Stranger, where am I?” Instead it came out as a garbled mess, like a walrus. What happened next was almost as bizarre. A man came from behind him as if to interpret for him.

“He doesn’t like you.” The interpreter had said. Jack knew that wasn’t right. He looked around only to catch his reflection in a mirror across the bar. That can’t be right, that man…or monster couldn’t be him.

The stranger in the white ladies robe had shrugged and apologized. “Sorry.”

Now there was a pause here. The interpreter leaned towards Jack and whispered, “It’s me, Cornelius. You should have let me explain.” This only brought more confusion to Jack’s face. He went to speak but again only walrus sounds came out.

“I don’t like you either. You just watch yourself. We’re wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems.” Cornelius pushed the stranger again, this time jabbing at him and going on about some crimes he had committed, or so it seemed to Jack.

Once again the polite, although efeminate and whiny, blonde stranger shrugged it off and spoke calmly. “I’ll be careful.”

Jack breathed a sigh of relief only to have his momentary peace shattered. Cornelius whispered once more, “Maybe next time you’ll listen to a talking dog.” Now the events that proceeded to follow this happened in quick succession, Jack still wonders where it all went wrong.

Cornelius erupted into a rage and grabbed the blonde stranger at the arm. “You’ll be dead! ” He shouted only to be interrupted by what seemed to be an escapee from some local nursing home. “This little one’s not worth the effort. Come, let me get you something.”

The crazy geriatric seemed to be attempting to quell Cornelius’ unreasonable rage. This of course fed Cornelius’ rage more as he did not adhere to things like reason or discussion. He shoved the blonde kid aside and withdrew a pistol of sorts. Jack took one step forward, a step he regretted forever.

The elderly man went into a hysterical panic and lit up some massive light beam from what Jack thought was a large pez dispenser. It yielded no candy for our wayward hero. Instead his arm was severed and Cornelius was cut across the abdomen. the dog-pig-man’s eyes glowed and in a flash they were gone.

When he returned to Earth it was 12 years in the future, his wife had assumed Jack had up and abandoned his family with the dog he had just adopted. As a result she had remarried and his children had grown to adults who despised him.

Jack’s live’s a simple life now with Cornelius. He doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. One of his first ventures out was to see a Dr. about the festering yet cauterized wound where his arm used to be….