Creature Discomforts

“Yes... Uh-huh.... Yes.” In apparent response to a suggestion, the man exclaimed, “Out of the question! The media would seize on it.” The fog exercised its appetite. A word reached me: “Death.” Then, with a note of finality, the man said, “Anonymity is, after all, anonymity.”
    As the memory faded, the voice rang itself to silence in my ears.
    Tragic accident. Whose? Whose death?
    The ledge was reassuringly devoid of harps. The recollected conversation didn’t meet my expectations of an angel choir. The fog had an earthy odor, like old compost, with a tinge of balsam and wild thyme, maybe, or some other herb. Still, perched as I was high in a cloud in some nameless region, I had to consider the possibility that the death under consideration was my own.
     

Chapter Two
     
    SPEAKING OF HAVING DIED and gone to heaven...
    Musical metallic jingles and the crash of bodies through underbrush heralded the twofold apparition that zoomed out of the mist. Was I seeing double? Thickly furred in a lupine shade of dark gray, the beasts radiated the wild and primitive aura of protocreatures cast forward in time from some shining netherworld ruled by a Creator who’d mated wolves to teddy bears. Speeding down the ledge, however, the animals moved like great cats. Before I could either rise or curl in fetal protection against their onslaught, they fell on me, knocked me flat to the rock, and began to scour my raw face with huge pink tongues. “Off!” I demanded. “Off! Off!”
    In what struck me more as accidental cooperation than as anything remotely like obedience, the dogs leaped to their big-boned snowshoe paws and wagged plumelike white tails before hurling themselves onto their backs, wiggling all over, and foolishly waving all eight powerful white legs in the air. Responding to the friendly invitation, I rubbed the two furry white tummies and scratched the two muscular chests while simultaneously seizing the chance to size up what were clearly going to be my saviors. The heat of the dogs’ underbellies was already warming my hands. I was not going to die. With no irreverence, I said softly, “Thank God.”
    As if performing a well-rehearsed act, both dogs quit squirming. They folded their legs, tucked in their massive forepaws, and fixed deep-brown, almond-shaped eyes on me. On close inspection, the dogs were far from identical. The larger dog, revealed as an intact male, must, I thought, outweigh his female companion by at least ten pounds. He stood about twenty-five inches at the withers. She was perhaps twenty-three. His muzzle was slightly blockier than hers, his triangular ears a hint smaller. His eyes were a deep bittersweet chocolate, a little darker than hers, and he had a notably soft expression, mainly, I thought, because his face was white, whereas hers was heavily masked. Dark markings made goggles around her eyes and blended into a bar that ran down her muzzle and up to a sort of widows peak cap on her broad skull. Reveling in the tummy rub, she nonetheless studied me with the intensity of a fundamentally serious intelligence. The male, in contrast, sank into bliss with a carefree smile on his face.
    But I have neglected to mention the newcomers’ most striking characteristics. First, the dogs were utterly and overwhelmingly beautiful. Second, both were dressed in red. She wore a sturdy-looking pack with heavy, bulging saddlebags that had shifted forward and twisted to one side. He was in a state of considerable dishabille: Three black straps with quick-release buckles fastened a red saddleshaped pad snugly to his back; one strap ran across his big chest, the others around his middle. Down the length of the pad and on each shoulder were strips of black Velcro that must have secured saddlebags like the female’s. He, however, had dumped or lost his pack somewhere. The jaunty red vest gave him the debonair look of a canine dandy.
    Mindful of the hum of distant traffic, I said in fierce, quiet tones, “If you were my dogs, you’d never be allowed to run loose!”
    I had to admit to myself, however, that the dogs showed obvious signs of responsible ownership. Although they’d been tearing around on their own, they were dragging red leashes that matched the packs. The leads were snapped to rolled-leather collars with brass fittings, from which dangled the tags I’d heard jangling. Fastened to the male’s collar was a bright circle of yellow with block capital letters announcing I AM A