THE HUNDRED-AND-ELEVENTH PAGE

Daffodils and rhubarb were not the only spring arrivals. Along came Rover, Tray, Pooch, Whatnot--I never gave him/her a name. Some people seem to resent the fact that they were not given the opportunity of naming themselves at birth, so they take it out on their animals. For the sake of the narrative I’ll deem the creature male.

It was one of those odd Catskill spring days when the sun was imprudently drawing the plants inches at a time out of the ground, leaving the greenery to bewilderment should a late afternoon snow shower bury them. Temperatures were hitting the mid-fifties, so all the doors were open. Mold spores from the books sailed out the doors and windows to muck around with the pollen. I sneezed, picked up my Evan Connell novel, and lay down on the couch, the only remaining piece of furniture in the living room. Lost in the novel’s dead language of 1930s Missouri, I was drifting somewhere between sleep and the Ward Parkway in Kansas City when I felt an odd sensation on the sole of my right foot. I peered over my glasses and saw a mass before me. Without my glasses all objects look like a pile of disorderly pixels until they are squeezed into shape by my corrected vision. I shifted my gaze through the glasses and saw a collarless dog of uncertain heritage. The rough, slobbery tongue, which had assaulted my foot, hung loosely out of a toothy cavern.