If I didn’t write about it, the black dog would remain hovering in the mind, alone for days, then would evaporate. In giving it company in the world, on the page, among real facts though, I distort it, the figure of it, into some portent, content, intent.
About 10pm I’d gone to lock the back door as part of going-to-bed ritual and glanced out the window of the garage door, alerted pre-consciously by some movement. The feeling was an immediate curious alertness, and an “ah this is why I came here.” A kind of kismet flashed between me and a black dog who did not look back. No portent, just a quick exultation in the strangeness of it: a black dog, coyote-shaped, with no humans around, snuffling through leaves in the gutter across the street. Though dark outside, the black of its body was denser, moving, four-legged, focused.
I stood stunned, chosen. By the time I got outside to look, there was nothing and then more nothing.
