One Dog Year: A Story from Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events

In this story from Kevin Moffett's dazzling new collection, Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events, an elderly, declining John D. Rockfeller waits in his wheelchair for an airshow to begin, pondering the tension between eking out every last moment of life and experiencing, for the first time in a long time, a moment of genuine adventure.

Resting on a high dune above the Florida surf, he watches a boisterous crowd gather along the shore while his faithful groom, Pica, stands quietly by his side. Surrounded by dunes and ocean winds, he weighs the bland obedience of survival against the reckless lure of the clouds.

His pockets remain weighed down with dimes for passing beachgoers, even as his days shrink to a clockwork succession of steamed crucifers and fitness juice. Between the strict arithmetic of his prescribed routine and the careless roar of an approaching biplane, an empire builder pauses to question what all his discipline has bought.

When the barnstorming pilot lands on the beach, can an eighty-six-year-old tycoon finally trade his strict regimen for the open sky?

• Historical Fiction: Eighty-six-year-old John D. Rockefeller hibernates among the Florida palms, sustained by eight daily meals of steamed crucifers and fitness juice.
• An Uneasy Dynamic: His devoted groom Pica tends his needs, brushes his cuticles, and sings secret songs about an old man running out of time.
• A Spectacle on the Sand: A crowd gathers on the dunes to watch The Alarming Ace II perform the famed Dead-man Drop over the Atlantic breakers.
• Literary Fiction: A poignant, quietly humorous portrait of mortality, stolen dentures, and the stubborn human impulse to hold fast to life.