Undermind

This is what I remember:

The old man sat in the alleyway between the dark red brick apartments. Thin, weaving dust peeled from the sides of the buildings and crawled down through the air to land in intricate, fractal patterns on the ground by his feet. He looked like the Curtiss picture of Geronimo at age 76, dark valleys of wrinkles and folded-in glances, blistering in an old khaki overcoat, all smears and folds. The Scottish terrier sat beside him, looking at his eyes. Scotty was white-tufted, dark-bodied, flashing pink tongue under grey moustaches, frenetic energy and wiggles, and they were moving down the alley together slowly. Behind them the lambent brick dust swirled to obscure their footprints.

"You've got to wonder." The old man's voice was a Harley sliding on gravel. He looked up, his brown and gray hair crackling and scratching across the shapeless collar of his jacket; he pointed at the sky. "You have GOT to wonder."

The Scotty looked up at him, quirked an ear back, then looked back down the alley towards the street, leaving the ear pointed at the old man. His tail wagged slightly, on automatic.

"Look at yourself. Don't you ever wake up and ask why you just woke up? Why the sun rose today? Where the baby pigeons are? Haven't you ever wondered why you've never seen a baby pigeon?" The old man put his hand on the warm brick beside him, and the dust wove and threaded to avoid his touch, delicate wisps curling around his arm. His fingernails were slightly blue; a battered, tough silver ring gleamed stubbornly on his middle finger, layer of sharp scratch over sharp scratch reflecting in quick, darting speckles through the reddish air.

He looked up again, and the dog suddenly looked up, too, to see two huge orange clouds, like a pair of cat's eyes, over them, in the otherwise clear sky. A movement in front of them; a long thin black shadow with yellow eyes, all nightmare moves and grey thoughts, crossing the alley on paws with the claws retracted. They both froze, watched. The cat glided langorously across the thin slit of fading sunlight and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Bast-ards." The Scotty sat and looked up. "Get it? Bast -- the Egyptian Cat Goddess. See? I have been listening."

"You still don't wonder."

The Scotty sat down, suddenly, and began to scratch his jawbone, just under his right ear, with his rear paw. The old man watched him, while sand crawled across the street, following the cat's path.

"You think too much." The terrier finally finished his grooming project and looked up at his companion. "You just think about all sorts of things that don't matter."

The old man grunted. "Abstraction."

"That again."

From somewhere above them, glass cried. Small pieces flew down, dancing with the red dust, swooping to avoid the pair.

"Yes, that again. It matters."

The old man sat down, carefully, walking his hand down the wall as he crouched, rocking backwards onto his blue wool pants. His big leather shoes with the stitching all crazy were brown dusty; the air moved around him. He reached over to scratch the Scotty on the left shoulder, just over the scapula, and Scotty wagged his tail and stretched.

"If you've really been thinking, ask me an abstraction."

Scotty looked up at him, wagging his tail more slowly. "I'll try, you seem to want me to so badly."

From behind them, there was a sound like a garbage bag full of vegetable soup being dropped five stories and landing on asphalt. They turned to watch a big chunk of concrete slowly rip loose and rise upwards into the sky. Stars flashed by, over and under the cat eye clouds that now were small and multiplying in yellows and greens.

"Ok." The Scotty pointed, like a hunting dog would, at the upwards-falling block. "Why did you stay?"

"When all the others went, you mean?"

The Scotty nodded briefly, and looked up at the old man.

"That's a very good question. That's an amazingly good question."

The Scotty's tail wagged furiously, and he gave a little involuntary jump; his mouth opened and he panted, his pink tongue looking almost like a valentine.

"I just knew I could! But... I still don't see why you ask these things."

The old man made a low, gutteral sound. A flock of chickadees flew through the alley suddenly, all quick darting movements and flashy feathers, screaming at each other, "Watch out, turn, go, slow down, food, animals!" Hard behind them, a Rottweiler and a Great Dane ran around the corner, lanky and drooling. They froze, seeing the old man sitting in the orangey red light.

"Oh shit." The Great Dane looked nervously at the pair, and the Rottweiler backed away, looking off to her left.

"Piss off." The Scotty growled at them. He walked forward one step, all bristly gray.

"But he's..."

"Piss off, I said."

The other dogs turned and ran.

The Scotty turned, proudly. "See? Action. No weird questions."

The old man shook his head. "You've got to know why you're doing things."

From the darkness at the side of the wall, the black cat appeared in a glow of yellow eyes. "Ok, then, old man, why DID you stay?"

"That was MY question," the Scotty mumbled.

The old man pursed his lips. "Because I want to know if dogs' souls go to heaven when they die." He glared at the cat.

"Not cats' souls, though?" the cat peened.

"Mmmph." The air twined around the old man's fingers as he drew in the dust. "Let the cat who is innocent throw the first stone."

"I wonder. I wonder why you're here and why you're spending your time trying to get him to think," the cat ailed.

"Curiosity killed the cat," the Scotty said.

"And satisfaction brought it back," the old man muttered.

"What?" Both the cat and the dog looked at him sharply.

"It's the sayings. 'Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back.' Benjamin Franklin said that."

"Well, I didn't know that." The Scotty sat down quickly, his tail still.

"I didn't either." Cat twitched her tail into a question mark, then flipped it back and forth into reverse question marks. "That's fascinating. I wonder what he meant by it?"

"I think it's pretty damned clear what he meant by it. Curiosity is dangerous but worth the risk."

"Oh no. It's much deeper than that," the cat snared. "It's much deeper than just that."

A quick skittering sound and a sudden flurry of grey movement, and the Scotty was sitting fifteen feet down the alley with a large rat in his teeth. He shook his head viciously; they could hear tiny crackling sounds like someone breaking spaghetti, and a rough, rubbery thumping as the rat's tail hit the Scotty's head with each shake. Then he returned to them, grinning, bloody-jawed. He stopped suddenly, reluctantly, and put the tattered corpse on the ground. "Neither of you really want any of this, do you?"

"No thanks." The old man shook his head.

Cat looked at it for a second and looked away.

"Good." The Scotty gnawed the head off. "See?" he mumbled over rat fur, "you're full of weird questions and now I have a full stomach."

"I have the sky," the cat grailed.

"When I was young, I'd have tied your tail to the leg of a rooster." The old man pointed at the cat, who smiled and writhed her whiskers.

In the street, a huge rooster with one blue eye walked by, heedless of them. They all three turned to watch it pass.

"I HATE it when you do that," the Scotty said. "It makes my tail go all bushy."

"Sorry," the old man said.

"Wow," the cat rialed. Then again, "Wow," and it vanished in a glow of black and yellow, leaving its smile. The smile opened and said, "wow," and then it, too, was gone.

"I hate them, too," the Scotty said. "They remind me of all the horrible, twisted parts of humans."

"They probably feel the same way about you."

"Yeah, and I'm proud of it."

The old man slowly, carefully lay down on his back, looking up at the sky, which was now full of tiny orange speckles. "Hey, come here for a second."

Scotty looked up, then quickly swallowed the rest of the rat's body, the tail dangling from his mouth briefly like a long, dry worm. One more gulp and he ran over to stand beside the old man's head, looking down into the gray eyes.

"I have to go now." The old man reached out and petted the Scotty.

"Like the others did?"

"Not quite. I have to go find the answer to my question."

Scotty looked at him blankly, head turned slightly to the side, tongue dangling, then leaned forward and licked the old man on the cheek. "You're doing it again."

The old man nodded. "Yes, I am, but I'll try to keep from doing it in the future."

"Really?" The Scotty sat down, still, intent.

"Really." Then the old man suddenly went limp, looking like himself in a vague awful way.

"Oh." The Scotty's head lowered for a moment, and then he leaned forward to lick the old man's face again. He sat back, leaned back, and pointed his nose to the sky, howled for a moment, and then dropped back down to sniff at the man's body.

"I hope you were right," he said. Then he turned and walked down the alley, wagging his tail.

Cat appeared, black curves and yellow glints, on the old man's chest. She curled up carefully, with her nose almost touching his chin, and went to sleep.