11 Fine Fellas at the Pond
Settle in. Once, at the edge of a pond in Ontario, when the maples had dropped most of their red and the evening came early, a black-and-white dog named Sonic sat counting. He counted the way dogs do, by noses. One by one, the fellas came down the path through the leaves, in their red toques, and touched noses with him, and sat. Seven came first, the ones who had been seen on the fact sheet. Then the three who walked a little backwards, patches flipped, who had their own reasons and didn't explain them. That made ten. They waited. The pond went from blue to silver to dark. Somewhere far off, a car went by on a gravel road, and then didn't. The eleventh was late. The eleventh was always late. She came out of the bushes with burrs in her fur and a leaf stuck to her toque, and said she'd been watching the cameras in the trees, and did they know the cameras go dark at night? They do. Nobody comes to change the batteries. One by one, little red lights blink out, and in the...