Women of Karantina

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The dog, which was in the habit of rummaging through the trash, could not find the trash it was in the habit of rummaging through.

It was March 28, 2064. For many reasons, to be related herein and hereafter, this day was the grimmest in Alexandria’s history. Everyone suffered its sting, but the one who felt it most was the dog that couldn’t find the trash. He hunted along the Metro station’s wall where the great heap should have been, with clouds of circling flies hovering above it, but found nothing. Not even the wall itself. The neighborhood was strangely exposed to the sun. Like a desert.

The dog was hungry. He trotted the length of the station wall, or where the wall should have been. He wagged his scabbed tail. Gazed into the distance. Rolled in the dust and rubbed his body against the wall. He was famished and frustrated, despondent and hot. Darkness gathered over the scene and there was nothing, not a single thing, to be found anywhere. He began to bark, and far away he saw a length of piping move. He gave another bark and it was then, with this second bark, that something struck his leg, something hot and hard, exactly like a bullet. For sure, a bullet. One leg lamed and one leg gunshot, the dog continued to sweep the neighborhood with his eyes, hunting for some other heap of trash and careful not to make any sound that might bring another bullet his way. Feeble, bleeding, he hid behind a dirt pile. Suddenly, his body bucked beneath a rain of gunfire.

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