Formerly

He swallowed a cough, afraid to break her fragile sleep, though he could hear her snoring sonorously in the bedroom upstairs, implying that she was gone for now. The house was quiet expect for the coordinated tick-tick of the dog’s toenails on the kitchen floor as he padded around, hunting for his master’s mistakes. The refrigerator whirred just at the limit of audibility, confirming its inanimate presence.

He decided that, being time for bed, he would take the dog for the final walk of the night, so that the animal would be empty and unlikely to further bother his already precarious sleep. He got up from the couch and stretched and, looking at the reticulated pattern of the ceiling, wondered whether he had settled for a routine of safety – a steady job, a wife, a house, late-model car and a faithful dog. The wild days seemed so distant as to be less a memory and more an impression. The dog was already at the door, though, looking fitfully between him and the potential of liberation, as if to say that he wasn’t sure that was what they were about to do but that he thought it was a good idea.

Outside, the air was not quite cold but the wind was racing through the tops of the neighbor’s pines and it seemed that a vortex could at any moment reach down and hoist man and dog into the cobalt night.These were the remnants of a winter that had been surprisingly ferocious, with cold and snow and ice and rain that only traced the margins of nature’s ultimate power. The suggestion of spring was now there to be sensed by the optimist. All around, straw-yellow lawns had been revealed as compressed by the weight of the weather that had pressed down over what seemed like a half of a year. Above, the moon, the size and shape of a silver dollar, blazed with grey and white incandescence.

The dog sniffed and pulled, as if on the trail of rare and valuable game. He trailed behind, neck strained to fit a neat right angle as he peer through the clear night into the stars and at the moon. They were beautiful, he thought, so bright and distant, like pinpricks through black paper.

He usually got the task over as quickly as possible, When he could see the dog begin to dawdle and have nothing further to offer, he would turn back to the house, walking briskly with the dog lagging behind. They walked further this night than was typical, though, into territories only vaguely familiar. He certainly had driven past some of these houses in the past, though the sense of familiarity was incomplete. He focused on the sidewalk ahead as the  streetlights were placed further apart here.

“What worries you, my friend?” His mouth hung open, sure of the experience.