Stan Gibilisco

I never saw into the yard because of the high wooden plank fence that surrounded it. I thought of getting a ladder and climbing up to look over the fence, but there had been robberies and burglaries in the neighborhood and people would call the police at the slightest provocation. For some time, I let the source of the barking remain a mystery. The high-pitched barking gave rise to visions of a small dog. But what breed? What color? The sound gave no clue.

Clinking sounds accompanied the barking, along with chain-rattling and an occasional incoherent human shout. The barking went on from breakfast time until dusk, distracting me from my work. Days of respite occurred -- "non-dog" days, when it rained -- so I began to look forward to foul weather. The dog made no noise at night. The dog's master, who I envisioned as a bespectacled, middle-aged man with a dilute attempt at a mustache and lips that never closed all the way over uneven teeth, had some measure of mercy on his neighbors. But not much. Most days are fair in South Florida. Usually, barking ruled the ether.

Why should a dog bark on beautiful days? Would it mitigate the boredom of being allowed a universe radius of but a few feet? Might the dog be startled by birds, butterflies, people or falling leaves? Might the barking be a hymn to life? Might it be orgasmic? Maybe the dog just liked to hear itself bark, as some people enjoy listening to themselves chatter. Could the barking be plain reflex? Might it be perverseness that drove the creature, an awareness that it generated irritation, pleasure in hammering at the ears of unseen victims who would gnash their teeth, as I did, at the infinite endurance of those vocal fibers? Did the monster contemplate the distress of its unwilling listeners? Or could it be sheer misery? Aha, the answer! Negativity can rage forever, while bliss passes in a heartbeat.

The noise echoed around the neighborhood, accentuating its dark resonance. At length, I concluded that the barking manifested the yammer of a quasi-conscious automaton whose programmer had degenerated beyond recall. The pitch would sometimes descend in paroxysms, calling to no one and expecting no answer, ever.

Imagine my surprise when I finally saw the creature, its barking having driven me, one day in the middle of May, to find and then stare through a knothole in the fence to alleviate my curiosity! I saw not a dog, but an old woman, wearing rags, chained to a stop sign in the middle of the yard. At first I did not believe it. I tried make her vanish by sheer force of will. I closed my eyes and shook my head and slapped myself in the face. But she remained there, down on all fours, the chain dangling from a collar around her neck.

The woman crawled within the circle that the chain allowed, hands and feet bare, hair awry. A ring of worn-down lawn defined the circumference of her world. She barked; the noise occurred in exact synchronization with the movements of her lips, leaving no question about the source ...

-- from "The Ides of May," 2006