Sometimes, the more absurd your goal is, the more you want to get to it. I'm a fool and I say that with my chin up...towards the moon.

I always had the thought circling in my mind that dogs, whenever the moon is full, they howl to it. Any reason behind this is beyond my understanding back then and now since there wasn't much change regarding my physique as an evolving homo sapien that could be showing any signs of lycanthropy.

Anyway, it had been a cultural connotation for a howl of a dog (or a wolf) to be incorporated to a sign of bad omen particularly, a sign of death or the appearance of something unnatural. I remember those old folklore movies that involved these howlings, whenever I hear them on the television, I'd go "The monster's near! Run you guys!" Of course I was pertaining to the characters in the flick and now that I'm remembering it, I feel like an idiot and now I'm getting goosebumps. *brrr*


But now that I give myself a moment to muse about that, it wasn't probably something like that that dogs and wolves alike howl because they can sense an evil spirit lurking within the premises. I can't say I'm expert with dogs and their howls. It just so happened that something struck me with the way they howl and how dogs behave that I was able to alchemise my own explanation.

In my whole life, even though I hate dogs, there had never been a time that our house hadn't had one. I don't know why but my parents would just say so that someone can guard the house. In all those years that I was living along with a canine (at one time, several), I observed that dogs like to bark at things far away from them. Sometimes they chase it but ultimately, they can't reach it. Or raising it to a higher moronic level, doesn't want to reach it. They look like a bunch of idiots. But hey! They're animals. They act by instinct. Can't blame them.


There's this nursery rhyme, that I believe most of us are familiar with--Hey Diddle Diddle? It goes like this:

Hey diddle diddle,
the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Now what caught me was the line "The cow jumped over the moon."

Why?

Since we're all talking about moon and dogs, how did the cow get into the scene?



Let me just explain it like this.

There's this dog who was guarding his owner's house when he saw a mouse pass him by. Naturally, he tried to catch it and luckily he did. But the mouse begged for his life and said that he would exchange his freedom for a secret that has been passed through the generations of the mouse family. The dog agreed and he was told by the mouse he caught that the moon was a large cheese and that if you take a bite off it, you'll experience a flavor nobody has ever imagined. Keeping his promise, he let go of the mouse and pondered deeply on the story. How does it taste like? He asked himself. I wonder if it's soft or hard. These thoughts gradually flooded his mind and soon he was obsessed with the idea of taking a bite off the moon. He would often sit by the top of the hill and look at the moon, fascinated by the gentle glow that it radiates. Oftentimes, he would bark and howl at the moon saying, "Just you wait, I'm going to take a bite off you!" Almost everyday, he barked at the moon saying the same things over and over. But one night, over the cliff where he frequented to gaze at the moon, he saw a strange lot. There was a cat with a fiddle, a cow stretching it legs like readying for a marathon, and a piece of China talking to a silver spoon. Curious, he went to them and asked them what were they doing on top of the hill. The cat looked at him and played with his fiddle before answering. "Cow here's going to jump over the moon." The dog was surprised and thought that they must be joking. Nevertheless, he asked: "Why?" The cat answered, "Why? To get some cheese of course. We heard from a mouse that the cheese from the moon is very tasty." "But why the cow? You could have done it since you're more nimble." the dog said. "Can't do that. Cow's the one who wanted to get a bite off the moon here. So he's been practicing jumping high." the cat replied. He watched the cow still doing some stretching exercises and breathing in and exhaling heavily. Then the cat played his fiddle with a merry song and the cow prepares to jump. With the next chord on the fiddle, the cow jumped and he was soaring up and up and up until he was so small from the dog's sight. The dog wasn't sure if it was true or not but he was standing there witnessing all of it. Then, with a presto music from the fiddle, the cow followed a beautiful invisible arc just above the glowing moon. The spoon and the China ran in the direction of the cow, much to the dog's confusion. "They're going to catch the cheese Cow cut off." the cat said when he noticed the look on the dog's face. The dog was speechless for a while then he began to smile and that smile slowly became snickers and eventually into sarcastic laughs.


In more ways than what I had imagined, I have been in a similar situation like the dog. Always, barking at the moon, staring at it from afar but never did any practices that could have helped me launch myself to get a lump of cheese. And now I see myself as an idiot dog who chases around objects from afar and barks at them when I can't reach them. Dogs aren't as nimble as cats. Dogs are made to bark. But then cows are made to be milked and to be butchered as cattle. They can't reach the moon. They're not supposed to.

I have another version of that Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey diddle diddle,
the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The dish ran away with the spoon
And the little dog stopped barking
Then laughed at himself to see such sport.

I am just a dog that barks at the moon
....at least the cow jumped over it with all it's boob dangling.