Interfictions 2 by Delia Sherman

Author:Delia Sherman [Barzak, Delia Sherman, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Published: 2010-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

Black Dog: A Biography

Peter M. Ball

The first time the Black Dog showed up, I was five. We were living in Miriwinni, and it lurked behind the low, chain link fence that marked out our backyard, hunkered down in the long grass filling the space between the fence line and the train tracks. Noone else could see it, not even my parents. It was good at hiding when other people looked.

I don't remember much about our house back then. My parents were teachers, so we moved a lot. I was five, and that means I'm working with hazy images here: I remember the house was on stilts, thick hardwood pylons that would keep the snakes out and keep us dry if the river flooded. I remember off-white weatherboards and a corrugated iron roof. We lived across the road from an endless expanse of north Queensland cane fields. They burned blood red and spat ash into the air during the harvest months. The town was just a school, a pub, and a corner store that sold fizzy drinks and cordial. Maybe a couple of dozen people lived around the train station, the rest spread out in the houses that nestled in the heart of the cane fields. My friends were mostly farm kids, seen only on weekends.

Miriwinni was the kind of place where adults were filled with conventional worries: a bad harvest, the bills coming due, snake bites while cutting the cane, a cyclone sweeping in over the coast. No one worried about the Black Dog except me. At first my parents would check the long grass when I spoke of him, just to make sure nothing was hiding there, but it didn't take long for their concern to falter. I was a child prone to imaginary friends and childish fictions. There was no reason to believe my stories. “It doesn't exist,” they told each other. “He'll grow out of it."

* * * *

One day, when my mother was taking me seriously, she convinced me that I should be making friends with the Black Dog. I was six, and I was terrified, and I refused to play outside. “It's time to conquer your fear,” she said, handing me a fistful of sausages. They were slimy to hold, the meat squelching through my fingers. My mother held my other hand and dragged me down the back stairs. “Give them to the dog,” she said. “Just throw it over the fence and let it know you want to be friends."

The Black Dog didn't want to be friends. It was already sniffing out my scent as I trundled down the back steps. I saw the wolfish head rise out of the grass, fixing me with its crimson gaze.

"Nice doggie,” I said. I held up the sausages so it would know I was willing to try. The Black Dog just smiled and pressed its body against the chain-link fence. The silky midnight of its muzzle pressed through the links, the moist tip sniffing as I got closer.

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