THEATER OF THE DOGS by RIVER CONFER Anything would go if the dogs knew it to be right. When they were outnumbered, it was easy to mistake them as fools, walking among reeds of linen and rubber unseen, unheard searching for scraps of food, scones on their way to broad street, bits of pizza and bread heading back to poplar. But that was how it was before, and now there was no one in the streets. There were no more cars in the boulevards and buildings full of lights. There were not even children at the corner of 9th street in the mornings waiting, dreading. Instead, there were dogs. At first, they occupied the streets in small numbers, waiting for the sea of noise and smells to wash over them, but it did not come. Then there were many of them, hungry and angry, searching for the next hour, waiting for things to resume. When the moon was small again, and the noise had still not come, the dogs began, in their restless way, to stand on hind legs and peer into the empty dark buildings holding rocks in their jaws and tapping on windows. After a few hours of this, when the windows were finally broken, the dogs climbed on top of each other into vacant homes and cars and banks and began to dress themselves. That night they ate well. They ate the food from the shelves of the stores and the pantries of their new homes and drank from glasses rimmed with gold, and then they slept. Waking early to pack all of the food they could fit into cars and trucks and rail cars until the shelves were empty and the vehicles sagged. And then they left for the noise, taking the transportation and leaving behind streets and stores and homes barren. And they have congregated here, in this great stadium standing shoulder to shoulder beer and bread in their clumsy paws. They might have heard the clicking of claws on concrete or the thump-thump of bodies swaying into each other like pines blown by the terrible winds of a violent storm if the air had not been filled with the howling of a billion dogs. The sea rose once again but not despite them, not without a one of them, today and for every day on, the sea rose and fell for them. And it was right.
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