RELEASE DATE: 01 February 2021
The strange visitor arrives in the nick of time, just as Natalie contemplates giving in to the feelers of darkness that surround her.
She can stay strong long enough to entertain a guest. But after that? Who knows.
A hopeful tale for everyone beset by the Black Dog.
The Day the Dog First Called
The day the dog first called, Natalia had been contemplating suicide. The cobwebby blackness that had once been confined to the upper corners of the house had recently begun to send out feelers and criss-cross the ceiling, and she knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before they reached down the walls and engulfed the floor, and then nowhere would be safe and she might as well be dead. Fear, however, held her back, and she was just contemplating her own futility when the doorbell rang.
Ordinarily, when the cobwebs pressed down and she couldn’t breathe, Natalia ignored the doorbell—and the phone—but today, morbid as her thoughts were, she thought perhaps she might like to share them with someone. And so she answered the door.
“What do you think,” she began, intending to question the visitor about means and methods, and stopped: the visitor was a shaggy, dirty-white dog. “Oh,” Natalia finished instead. “I expect you don’t think much about anything, do you.”
The dog sat, pink tongue lolling to one side, and stared at her. “Well,” it said. “I hope sometimes I do.”
Natalia stared back. “I suppose you had better come in, then,” she said at last. “Can’t have you sit there all day.”
The dog stood, and she motioned it into the house. It waited politely in the entryway for her to close the door, then followed her into the kitchen.
“Would you like a drink?” Natalia asked, moving stacks of dirty bowls onto piles of used plates. After all, a talking dog was no stranger than the cobwebs, and it never hurt to be polite. “Sorry about the mess.”
“Not at all,” replied the dog. “Some water would be lovely.”
Natalia rummaged in the cupboards for something clean, settling at last on a greasy glass baking dish. Turning away, she gave it a quick polish with a tea towel that had seen better days and hoped the dog wouldn’t mind. She filled it with cool water and set it on the floor.
“Thank you,” the dog said, and lapped at it.
Natalia leaned back against the kitchen sink, watching the rhythmic motions of his mouth and overtly ignoring the black feeler that waved in her peripheral vision. Her husband had said ignoring her ‘strange fantasies’ might improve the situation, and while it had never worked yet, she felt she ought to at least make an effort in the presence of a guest.
The dog finished and raised his head, water dripping from his hairy chin. He glanced around and gestured at a second dirty tea towel lying crumpled on the floor. “May I?”
Natalia nodded. “Of course.”
The dog padded over and wiped his chin before curling up on the floor at her feet and staring at the roof. “Dark in here, isn’t it?” he said.
Natalia nodded again, her voice stuck behind the lump in her throat. She’d told her husband it was dark; she told everyone that it was dark in here, that the cobwebs were growing, but all they did was look at her strangely and note how spotless the ceilings were. “Is it?” she asked the dog, quavering. “I hadn’t noticed.”