(65) Noir

My dog started to act up yesterday; he bolted from me on a walk, and then he refused to stop howling all day (the return of the wolf blood still latent in a spaniel). Then, at four in the morning, he began to howl and bark and entered every room in the house—rooted everyone out. He moved from one room to another, whimpered and howled—demanded to be let out and then ran back inside. He looked disturbed. I tried to calm him down, keep him by my bedside—where he slept as a puppy—and yet he just headed to the landing and began to howl again.

Eventually, I gave up and left him to his nighttime manoeuvres. However, before I went to bed I glanced outside my bedroom window for some reason—not something I usually do. It was then I noticed that one star in particular moved independently—just like the god-UFOs at Hartsfell. I picked up my monocular—I always keep it on my bedside chair—and examined the star; and, indeed, it glittered like a red-and-ice-blue gem—and then it resolved into the ecstatic zig-zag, as if it were neon string, that I saw at Hartsfell. I watched its progression about the sky a little while, noticed it was joined by a companion—then clouds covered everything over.

I went to bed and I noticed that my dog had finally stopped crying and howling—he had gone to sleep. As I closed my eyes, the darkness resolved into the night sky and I saw a single white star; it was no dream or imagination, it was there as if I looked at the sky with my eyes. Eventually it disappeared. It reminded me of Dante’s Canto 30 in Paradiso—which I had just read—in which the Heavens resolve to a single star. They say dogs are always disturbed in the presence of UFOs—this morning, I noticed the neighbourhood dogs were all out to bark too.