“Big Dog in the Sky”

as told by Bailey, Guardian of Apartment 2B

I am Bailey.

Three years old, more or less. Border collie, more or less. Herding dog by blood, apartment dweller by circumstance. My flock is small; a mom, two teens – but they’re mine. The boy pup wears headphones so much I wonder if his ears work without them. The girl pup is a little messy but she loves on me the most. The mother tries to do everything at once, which is no way to live, but I admire her tenacity. 

We live in Apartment 2B, second floor. Too high to herd anything. Too small for proper perimeter sweeps. But a job is a job, and I am a working dog. I patrol the windows. I guard the door. I give a warning bark every time the stairs groan beneath an unknown foot. This is my territory. My charge. My sacred trust.

No intruder has ever breached our apartment.

But then there’s him.The Big Dog in the Sky.

He doesn’t knock. He descends. He doesn’t walk. He rumbles in at night.

He has come in the early morning for the last three nights. The first time I heard him, I thought the world was ending. A deep, rolling bark that echoed through the walls, past the blinds, into my teeth. I couldn’t see him, only feel him in the air, in the bones of the building, in my heart. Flashes of light outside spread across the sky like long jagged teeth. The sky wept like a pup left in a parking lot. That’s when I knew.

There was a dog bigger than all of us.

Bigger than the mailman.

Bigger than the trash truck.

Bigger than an Animal Control van… and he was angry.

I don’t know why. Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he lost his own humans. Maybe he was once like me, dutiful, faithful, until the world forgot him and now he roams the clouds, barking at what used to be. I’ve thought about that. At night. When I’m curled beneath the girl’s blanket, pretending not to be afraid.

Because I am afraid.

I’m not ashamed to say it. The Big Dog terrifies me. I don’t show it during the day. I walk tall on the leash. I sniff every lamppost and read the news left by the males. (They mark; I decipher. It’s a dog thing, you wouldn’t understand.) But when the sky grows inky black and sinister in the middle of the night and smells like metal and electricity, I know he’s coming.

The humans don’t get it. “Just a storm,” they say. “Just weather.”

Just?!

That’s like saying squirrels are “just chaos dressed in fur.” That a knock at the door is “just a sound.” That love is “just routine.” No. Some things mean more. The Big Dog is a force, a message, a myth with teeth. And he leaves proof the branches knocked down, trash cans knocked sideways, the puddles where scents used to live, the silence of birds after.

No bark of mine has scared him off. Not yet. But I haven’t given up.

Because last night, something changed. I didn’t hide under the bed. I didn’t wedge myself between the couch and the laundry basket. I didn’t even climb into bed with the girl until the worst had passed. I stood by the front door. Watching. Waiting. I didn’t bark, not out of fear. Out of respect.

I wanted him to know I see him. I don’t understand him. But I see him.

And someday, when he comes again, and he will, I’ll be ready.

Not to fight. Not exactly. To stand my ground.

Maybe that’s all you can do with a god.