tale of the powder-blue void

the dog, a shepherd-chow mix, was plucked from the mundane reality of a cement-floored living room in the late 1990s and was suddenly hurtling through what appeared to the dog to be a featureless patch of sky. the dog’s brain translated the motion into a terrifying endless fall and he yelped and scrabbled at nothing. those who had captured him also had taken the volume of air he had inhaled, and they had surrounded the dog with an enormous volume of air of the same mix and pressure, mindful of the dog’s survival.

as the dog slowly calmed, the kidnappers performed endless scans and other tests on him, and soon they had enough of what they wanted to be able to return the dog to the living room from where they’d snatched him. they observed the household periodically thereafter while a genetically identical version of the dog was created and brought to maturity.

the original dog died two years and two months after his abduction. the observers watched passively as the family buried the dog in their back yard.

a few days later the family was sitting in their living room and heard a scratching sound at the front door.