The dog walkers don't even try. Their overcoats are too pressed, too dander-free, to be convincing. They are too awake at this hour, too agile in their engagement.

They break off from marked trails to stand at shadowy benches in the public park. They prompt a trickle from the stone drinking fountain, once, twice, never bending down to drink. Their newspapers and books appear too suddenly from pockets or neat satchels.

They smoke using lighters of a metallic luster carved with cryptic designs. The funnels they expel hang solid in the air far longer than condoned by the principles of ambient physics.

When they speak—if they speak—their studiously neutral accents slip on vowels into something else.

The dogs themselves are unfamiliar breeds, with rigid triangular ears that can be seen rotating implausibly in the direction of distant whispers. They crouch at their business with the elegance of ergonomic furniture. Having finished, they assent to a brisk palming of cinnamon manes or bibbed chests.

Watch the sky, you say, or think you say, or think you hear being said somewhere in the underbrush.



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