Cameron awoke to find John Wilkes Booth seated on his chest and licking his nostril, brown eyes dumbly staring into Cameron’s own grey ones.

Wilkes was a dog of course, a Boston terrier to be exact, and to Cameron’s knowledge had no part in the assassination of our 16th president. His name was John Wilkes Booth because that is the kind of awesome, noble name that historians give their beloved animals, and because Cameron won the coin toss. His wife Cindy had wanted to name the beast Mycroft, because that is the kind of shit that literature professors are always doing to their pets.

Cameron moaned and lifted Wilkes onto the floor, then sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Seven AM light was streaming through their bedroom windows, a luminous, sun-dappled blue that reminded him that there is a world beyond reach of a sleepless night.

“I am not a morning person,” he reported aloud to no one in particular.

Cindy muttered an obscene reponse from deep within the blankets and hurled a throw pillow at his head.