Marie Eschatological opens up to the press about her

IDAHO TIMES: Marie, you are of course not the first spouse to be cast aside in the impassioned pursuit of dog photography—

MARIE ESCHATOLOGICAL: and I doubt I'll be the last, either! <laughs>

IDAHO TIMES: But you certainly might be the discipline's highest profile victim, to-date... What, in your view, is its primary allure?

MARIE ESCHATOLOGICAL: <pauses> Well, I don't want to short-change you with my answer, but I'm afraid my husband was—still is—something of an outlier in that scene. See, the usual appeal of dog photography, so far as I can make out, seems to be its sheer diversity of subject matter—"no two dogs are ever quite alike". Frequent any of those hobbyist forums and aphorisms such as these are inescapable... And yet, for my dear Matthew, there was—could only ever be—but one subject.

IDAHO TIMES: If I may, Marie—you refer of course to Dog?

MARIE ESCHATOLOGICAL: Yes... For him, it has always been Dog.

IDAHO TIMES: And so, what was basis for his preoccupation with this particular muse?

MARIE ESCHATOLOGICAL: I think, unfortunately, that only Matthew could tell you that.

IDAHO TIMES: Alas, I'd a feeling that you might answer in that fashion. Not to say, of course, that I blame you, or otherwise doubt your testimony whatsoever. Heaven knows that the whims of a husband can be at the best of times inscrutable... So, moving swiftly on, then, in the wake of the divorce—upon which I can see no need at all to dwell further—what is it that drew you towards the Gem State?

MARIE ESCHATOLOGICAL: Well, since infancy, I'd always quite fancied visiting Idaho. I couldn't have said precisely why. I think it was as much to do with the shape and the sound of the word as anything else: the vague outline of an outline of an idea which, once germinated, blossomed in secret for six or so summers and died, unrealized, in early adolescence. But divorce has a funny way of making one look backwards, and I duly obliged: to my life before Matthew, when the name pointed to no more than a half-acquaintance from primary school, and an uncle's friend met just once. Soon enough, the cold, steady rain of the present revived that withered, long-neglected plant of the past, and I found myself soaring 35,000 feet over the Atlantic, happy just to be anywhere. "One day we will die", I thought to myself, but not today. The in-flight brochure, with its immaculate sheen and faint chemical scent, promised to me the singular beauty of that part of the world—

IDAHO TIMES: Marie, I'm very sorry, but I'll have to stop you there. In devoting such attention to your story—compelling though it may be—I'm afraid I've neglected the world's constant, countless happenings. The finer points of your recent fortunes belong to a lamentably bygone era of journalism: halycon days when one could stretch, lazily, half-interesting platitudes until they fill double-page spreads and satisfy gluttonous editors. Now, everything happens all at once, and there is nary a moment to piece the scattered shards together—to ponder what all of it means.