It rained the day they took Gustavo's eye. Fat drops at first, cold and sparse. Then the rain got to work like it was making it for lost time. But he saw none of it.

Gustavo woke and knew something was different. But with no words, the change could not be understood. He could not see anything on his right side. But then he never really saw much over there anyway. There were faint shadows there in the morning. In the afternoon there was nothing.

As he had gotten older, and when his legs grew sore and stiff, it was as if that's how he had always been. When he was younger, he ran across the yard and played with boundless energy. But now those were wordless images in his mind with no connection to a time or place.

Was it bliss to be without language? To only have pictures and urges flittering by to guide you? They were so simple and nameless and understandable. Food was wanted. Water was wanted. Warmth was wanted. And in between those, sitting next to the man's leg was wanted. 

The urges came and they were obeyed until satisfied, or until another urge took precedence. Or they’d simply pass and be forgotten. But another would always come. It was never new or old, it was just an urge. A perpetual present with no past or future.

So he did not miss his eye because he did not know what an eye was. He did know that something was different.

In time, that too faded, and he didn't even know there was a difference to notice.

He just was.

And then came the urge to eat. And that was the only thing that mattered.

—Chris Neuhahn (Alexander Guy)

Gustavo is our 12 year-old pug. Like a lot of purebred pugs, he’s had skin and other chronic issues. Constant eye infections put him as risk of a rupture. But he is happy and now matches his brother, Squint, a rescue who came into our lives with only one eye.