[ WP ] scientists have invented a serum that allows animals to speak . Your dog was recently given the serum , but it appears the treatment has not worked . Your cousin , whom you have n't seen since your youth , comes to town to visit . As the door opens , your dog suddenly whispers in your ear : `` run . ''

`` What did you say?'' I asked. 
 
 Travis's deep brown eyes filled with worry, he sniffed the air deeply and gazed out the window in alarm before trotting back to where I sat, `` I said run. Get out of here. Your cousin is crazy and she's come to kill you! She has a terrible weapon of UNSPEAKABLE POWER. Go! I'll slow her down!'' 
 
 So I ran. 
 
 Let me tell you, life on the run is no picnic. A man ca n't disappear as he once could. These days disappering means not seeing a doctor, never renting or owning a home. It means never taking work and never leaving a trace. In that moment I ceased living and started surviving. 
 
 The years take a toll, and hard years take that much more. By the time I was fifty, alcohol, drugs and the other ways people escape unavoidable fates began to wear on me. 
 
 I was at death's door, my first visit in 30 years to a doctor became my last. I was placed in the palliative care ward, under instructions that I be `` made comfortable'' but nothing could prepare me for my last day. The pain had become unbearable when the door opened and in stepped my murderous cousin, who had banished me from my life all those years hence. 
 
 She could have passed for my daughter, despite being my age exactly. We said pleasantries, and I watched her hands, searching for the weapon of unspeakable power I'd been warned about. 
 
 But subtlety is for people who are not at death's door. 
 
 `` Remember when you came to see me and brought a weapon? What did you mean to do with it?'' I asked. 
 
 `` Weapon?'' She asked. `` Last time I saw you... Oh, I remember! I stopped over to bring you that old vaccuum cleaner, and you were gone. So I vaccuumed for you. Your dog about tore the thing apart, by the way.''
