The same could not have been said for his new and only neighbor (“Charles”), who painted his house brown with a red door the day he moved in. He owned a dog (“Snoopy”), who barked every time a person came near the little brown house. Snoopy always circled the ground around his house. It was because of this that anyone who passed by could clearly see where his house was, whereas everyone could not tell if Albert’s house was a place to live in, or a pile of snow.
Albert was the type of man who hated change. He disliked his new neighbor and especially the noisy dog.
When winter came, Charles advised Albert to stay together when going outside. Albert rolled his eyes, and decided to store up everything he needed in his house, so that he would not have to go anywhere with Charles.
One day, Albert looked in his storehouse and found out that his supply of wood was blown away by the wind. Albert had forgotten to patch up a hole in the wall, and now he was paying for his laziness.
Albert rushed off to chop down a few more logs, not bothering to hail for Charles.
He started chopping down some trees, daydreaming. When Albert re-focused, he was surprised to find a lot of wood chopped down: Albert had been subconsciously walking all the while!
Turning around, Albert slowly started to panic as he realized that he could no longer see his house!
Albert rushed around, trying to retrace his footprints, but the darkening sky and falling snow covered them up.
Albert closed his eyes and walked around, hoping, by some miracle, that he would be led home. Albert thought things were working well, until he fell into a river. It took several minutes for Albert to pull himself out.
Albert was wet, cold, and miserable. His head hurt, and he could feel his body slowly starting to freeze. Stumbling around, Albert muttered: “This is it. And all I can think of is that stupid brown house with the stupid loud dog.”
Finally, Albert decided to lay down in the snow, and spend his final moments of life thinking of better memories. He would not run around like a crazed chicken, panicking that his life would leave him.
Suddenly, Albert heard footsteps. He opened his eyes to see a blurry figure running over him. In fact, Albert could have sworn that he knew him.
“Snoopy?