November 2000

At night the feeling of abandonment suffused the rundown quarter of city. Buildings - hardly more than stands of decayed brick - lined the narrow streets. At the corner of the block was a dead lot where a building had once stood. The square flat patch of soot and garbage, overgrown by weeds, was abutted in its inner sides by the two neighboring buildings. And there, with their backs to the graffiti-covered brick, sat two dogs. One of them, the one closest to the sidewalk, had magenta fur. The other could have been his twin, except for his fur, which was a primary blue. Beyond their unusual color, the dogs looked at home here in the decrepit lot. Their hair was scraggly and matted, and their eyes sunken. Something held the blue dog's attention though; he seemed to have something in his front paws, which were as articulated as hands. He was preoccupied, fumbling and petting at something. This caught the magenta dog's attention at last, and he peered closer to see what the fuss was about. "It's my mouse," explained the blue dog. "Let me see it," said the other. The magenta dog was clearly the alpha. The blue dog was visibly uneasy at the request, but complied as if he had no other choice. As soon as the magenta dog had the mouse, he popped it into his mouth, got to all fours, rounded the corner to his right, and trotted down the sidewalk. The blue dog was shaken to his core, and shouted, "Nooooooo!" He closed his eyes and brayed a hollow low of despair. "Nooooooo!" his head thrown back. The magenta dog, now nearly a block away, glanced over his shoulder with obvious ambivalence before disappearing around the corner. The blue dog's neck began to stretch impossibly along the brick wall, like a snake, as his head sought solace away from his body, which was still sitting casually at the streetside edge. "My mouse! Oh give me back my mouse!" called the blue dog's head, which had slid its way to the inner corner of the lot, and then continued down along the other wall. The dog's neck, stretched as it was, now had sparse rings of blue fur around otherwise naked skin, which was corded with the exertion. "Bring back my mouse!"