Grendel is sick.  Very sick, in fact.

And this atop the many ailments that already beset him: the immune system disorder that attacks his own intestinal tract, the stones within his kidney and bladder, the asthma that besets his lungs with fervent evil, and the arthritic bone spurs that grapple with his joints.

Yet even now some new villain wields its tempestuous blade in another attempt to rob his marvelous spirit of life.

Within the past week he has lost almost a full pound (half a kilogram).

He shakes and shivers as though beset with a fever measured far beyond what we humans can know.

A glaze rests within his eyes, visible in both direct and indirect light.

Today he spent hours at the veterinarian’s office, blood taken, tests given, all manner of suffering poured upon a soul already in torment.

Results offer no clue as to what vile ghoul stabs at him with blades of anguish.

For those who believe in some deity, some god, I ponder this on your behalf: What devilish being would continually visit upon this hapless soul the murderous agonies of such a life?  Is this the mercy you would have the rest of us believe your god practices?

Grendel is the child of a lesser god, a savior of such sadistic tortures as to be the very fiend from whom we are promised salvation.

Go and pray now, offer up your shallow wishes for help to that wicked, malevolent thing you call a god.  It doesn’t exist, you know, for my poor child can testify that no divine being would see fit to torture such a loving soul with so many plagues.

As for what will become of this episode, one cannot know.  The promise of days to come has been taken from my sponge, my alpha, my tiger.  Little hope remains that he will survive this onslaught.

Your disgusting gods notwithstanding, I have more hope than that, hope resting not upon such empty promises but upon the best science and medicine that money can buy.

Now we wait…