A Typical Day

Today's walk with the pups starts out like any other. Because of the below freezing temperatures outside, I bundle up while the impatient ones watch me. They jostle around at the door for pole position. Finally, I have the big boy harnessed and we head out the door to the screened-in porch where they both wait again for a second before I push open the screen door. They rush out but have to pause once more, this time at the gate to the front of the house. With my puffy gloves on, I struggle to connect the leash on the big boy's harness. The girl doesn't need any leash. She's older, a Border Collie mix, obedient. We live on a farm in a rural area with no one around for miles. There is only a gravel road nearby, and she knows not to go there. The boy isn't where she is in his training yet and may never be. We'll see.

Opening the eight-foot high wooden gate ushers in the wind from the north. The gust freezes my neck as my hair hanging out from under my orange toboggan blows back. I pull my hood over my head and cinch it around my neck. The dogs, noses high, love the cold. I wonder what smells come to them in such an icy breeze--maybe decaying leaves and animal carcasses, fresh deer poop, coyote musk, and pine.

We're walking now. The boy pulls me forward and I keep steady reverse tension on the leash so he doesn't jerk my arms out of their sockets. He's so strong, an American Staffordshire Terrier weighing over eighty pounds, and not yet eight months old. The girl darts out ahead, always the brave leader. She briefly herds the yard birds, then does a quick dash after a rodent in the winnowed hay before coming back to our usual route.

I hear the familiar faraway road sounds, although fainter for the stiff breeze rustling the pine branches and causing the skeletal hardwoods to clack. A woodpecker taps a nearby green ash. Squirrels bicker. Fluffy little wrens, scratching on the hard ground for whatever food may be left, alight as we approach. We pass the pond that's now frozen over but still dark, so I assume it's a thin layer. Majestic black vultures and turkey vultures kite overhead, looking reckless and unsteady. In the violent gusts, the huge raptors swoop at angles that seem out of control. Both pups look up and watch them.

The wind roars again. Next I hear the loud dual exhaust rattle of a large truck in the distance and another groaning noise I don't recognize. Despite the brutal wind, the clouds look still, as if glued in place. They seem more rounded, less fluffy. Now the wind stops, and so do the dogs. I run into the puppy's back legs, but he doesn't budge or look at me. The girl is up ahead several yards and motionless. For a moment I hear some leaves quietly crunch under the foot of some creature, a deer maybe. The vultures have disappeared. The silence is sudden and complete. I'm surprised to find that I'm warm, sweating. Both dogs turn their heads to the side to look at me, and I feel the hair stand up on my neck.

Something is behind me. I start to run forward, and the dogs bolt ahead, following my cue.

There is no noise but more of a vibration that I sense behind me. It's something large and must be aloft because I don't hear any footfalls other than my own. I'm running faster than I think I've ever run in my life. It hurts my knee joints and the balls of my feet to run like this in winter boots. I glance back, though I know I shouldn't.

What I see moving behind us is impossible. My mind reasons at me that the thing is so large that it hasn't noticed us. But it's heading in the same general direction as we are, so I need to change our trajectory and let the woods envelop us. I click my tongue twice so the girl will follow. I yank the leash so the boy will move with me. Now we are surrounded by pines. We race on the thick, slick carpet of fallen pine needles. Soon the aching crash of dozens of trees signals to me that the impossible thing flying behind us is so large that we could be crushed by the trees collapsing in its wake. Why didn't I think of that? We reach the edge of the pines, burst out onto a tractor path, and head back into a cover of hardwoods. I feel certain we've run well outside the girth of the thing now. I can hardly breathe. I've managed to tear my pants' legs and coat sleeves, but we're all safe. I slow to a jog and make a low whistle for the girl. She comes to me, and I realize we're all trembling as I look back to see what's passing by us now. I will try to describe it.

It's monolithic and translucent but looks like its surface is leathery grey like an elephant's. I can't estimate how many stories tall it is because it's hard to see the top of it. It's fairly narrow. And there is a face; it will haunt me. I only saw it for that second I looked back. I think of H.P. Lovecraft and wonder if he ever dreamt of something like this. Had this thing looked at me, I think I would not have been able to move. Thankfully, we are so insignificant to it that we went unnoticed. That face is not sphinx-like but as unfeeling, cold, aloof, not human, more like a mollusk or something similar. Though the thing is nearly transparent, it looks solid but with smokey edges somehow, maybe scalloped at the bottom and maybe a bit gooey or frothy. I didn't expect it would knock down the trees but rather that it would pass through them. It's like a giant floating ghost snail. It looks like it could hide in plain sight if it remained at a particular angle to the sun. That's the best I can do. I wish I knew what the dogs perceived. The girl barks at everything, but she was silent and only ran when I did. So, I think it didn't register as a threat, but she knew something was there.

Here, trying to process everything, in the woods with the dogs, I can hear trees crashing in the distance, gunshots, sirens, tires squealing. I don't know what's going to happen. If this thing is passing by us, by our planet, maybe we'll be lucky and it will keep making its way through the galaxy. I hope it hardly notices the bullets that may be hitting it because, if it decides to respond, I think we're all in big trouble.

We walk slowly back towards home. The pups walk close to me now and keep looking up at me. I see their eyes look up and past me. I look up to see a vulture gliding overhead. I find some treats in my pockets and hand them out. The dogs accept them with sufficient greediness but remain wary. I wonder if there are more enormous flying ghost snails that will pass through. But the wind has returned; the clouds are drifting as they should. The girl sees a squirrel and watches it for a second but decides not to chase it this time. Ahead the house looks fine. A grey trail of smoke rises from the chimney. My husband is running towards us with a concerned look on his face. I release the breath I've been holding and unbunch my shoulders. I can tell myself that everything is normal, that we'll be safe, that nothing will be too hard for us to handle. I've always told myself these things. I hope the coffee pot is still on when we get inside.