I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth

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“I HAD A DREAM about Zenia last night,” says Charis.

“Who?” says Tony.

“Oh, crap!” says Roz. Charis’s black and white mystery-mix dog, Ouida, has just smeared her muddy paws down the front of Roz’s new coat. The coat is orange, perhaps not the best choice. Charis claims that Ouida has special perceptive powers, and that her paw smearings are messages. What is Ouida trying to say to me? wonders Roz. You look like a pumpkin?

It’s autumn. The three of them are shuffling through the dry leaves in the ravine, taking their weekly walk. It’s a pact they’ve made: to get more exercise, to improve their cellular autophagic rates. Roz has read about this in one of the health magazines in the dentist’s waiting room: bits of your cells eat other bits that are diseased or dying. This intracellular cannibalism is said to help you live longer.

“What do you mean, ‘crap’?” says Charis. With her long white crinkly face and her long white crinkly hair, she’s more sheeplike than ever. Or more like an angora goat, thinks Tony, who prefers the specific to the general. That inward, ruminative look.

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