Night Howlers

In the middle of the night the dogs howl, returning earth to the wild ... baying from their five year old throats centuries of domesticity and several eons of being lonely. The large moon triggers it, perhaps or a sudden change in the weather, or some other dog's distant howling. We, their security, are almost an era away wrapped in the blankets of our sleep, in our carpeted caves. Food is hard to get; remnants of last night's meal lie, temporarily rejected in bowls near them. The excitement of hunger and the hunt gnaws at their minds.

We go to the door and call them to reassurances, giving them again their current place in history and they listen and grow still,

comforted.