Dog Star

Ash stands in the yard, the night breeze brushing their harvest-moon skin. It’s cold (although, master of homeostasis that they are, they do not shift or shiver) and their bare arms prickle with scattered goosebumps that mirror the steady stars above. “Look, Olly, the Big Dipper,” they croon, but the dog continues to attend to his business, keeping his nose pointed firmly toward the ground. Ash sighs and shakes their head, already resigned to adoring him.

Absently, they tap their watch. It’s nearly ten, and they feel sleepiness tugging at every part of them with the blind insistence of a toddler. But they stand guard over Oliver all the same, their toes pressed into the edge of the dirt. Ash watches him until he finishes and saunters towards them, taking his time. Ash stoops to pet him, scratching the soft place behind his ears, burying their face in his warm fur.

Finally, they smile against him and give his head a quick peck. “Come on, boy.” They lead Oliver to the garage and he bounds inside towards the waiting shape of their mother.

Tired as they are, Ash pauses outside the garage door and takes another look at the stars. Their brain orbits through half-remembered names of constellations, dying galaxies and spinning plants, points and lines and pieces of physics that make impossible things make sense.

They also see that the stars are beautiful.

They walk inside to sleep.

Behind them shines Sirius, unblinking eye of Canis Major. Long ago, storytellers, faces glowing in fragments of firelight, told stories of the Dog Star that guarded the earth. The memory of perfect puppy love, strung together, lines of light, easy as magic. Beautiful as physics. A fact: Sirius spins closer to us each year. Maybe Orion stands waiting for the Dog Star, arms open. Maybe all dogs know a bit about coming home.

Now Canis Major stretches in the sky above Ash, half wrapped around the silhouette of one night-painted house, wrapped around one sleeping kid with harvest-moon skin, wrapped around a dog that couldn’t be anywhere else.

by A.J.