The Dogs Are Talking

The dogs are talking.

Oh, not in long sentences; more like the rustics I grew up with. Scoob is moving towards the door of an unknown apartment and I ask him where he's going and he says, in a growl so he won't be overheard and understood by outsiders, "Ahdunno."

There is a pup with a message. I know this somehow, and I see her, long fur flashing along a distant road. If she is stopped, she won't tell anyone anything, and there is no message attached to her collar. She is running down the road. She will tell me, most likely, "commonhome."

The village is like a ruin. It is white as southwestern desert sand but there is no dust, and the buildings start in dunes and build up running along into walls and then there is a buttress and cornice and a swirling rococo spire column and another and then exactly like music it wanes and slows and drawls into a dune. The city is composed, like a symphony.

It isn't dirty or dusty either. If you step through a heavy wooden door, any door, the inside is ornate wood paneling, oak and teak. It is dark and quiet inside. Here's one who I was once friendly with, and have neglected. I want to make nice. Everyone is lying about in torpor, woven art dropcloths covering overstuffed furniture.

"You should meet Reloj! Reloj's here."

"I've met Reloj." Bored, angry at the neglect, distant.

Reloj with two others wells up like a glass-domed centerpiece out of a table. He doesn't speak. They are just there in that tight space, being. I don't know if it's some sort of projection from the basement. Hey, I'm thinking, Reloj's here.

I must go out and work now. It is the time for work. Before was the time for lounging. There are four of us, and we are on a slanted street, and our lunch is in what looks to be a trash can on wheels. The delivery person parks it up the hill from me and my partner, near two other workers. I think, he might as well have parked it with us.

I go to the cart (actually a round cylinder) and open it. There is the bottom of many pizzas. How do they keep from spilling their toppings? They are upside down.

A smiling face among them. It's my daughter! I pull her out of her entwining with upside-down pizza. I hold her. She is covered with sauce, smiling. She only says, "So warm!"

I walk with her now. It is walking-with-daughter time. Up there the buildings wax, and back there they wane. Wait, hold on, this isn't the block I'm looking for. The streets have no names and the buildings have no numbers, nor any other distinction, even so far as separate walls. It's essentially an unknown number of streets of untold rooms.

There is a little dog somewhere, running to bring a message. I must find the little pup. I turn and start back the way I came. It's being lost time now.