Dog Years
A Fantasy Short Story
Not so long ago, scientists discovered that our emotions are very similar to those of humans. It turns out man’s best friend can actually feel friendship.
What those same scientists missed is that some dogs can also achieve intelligence far above the normal canine level. Or perhaps they didn’t miss it. Maybe my intelligence is the result of magic and can’t be measured by science. I have insufficient data to determine the truth.
I used to try to reveal my genius to my humans. But the subtle tonal variations in my barks and whines—and, as I got older, my wheezes—were lost on them. My canine brothers, not operating at my intellectual level, didn’t understand me, either.
I thought about trying to learn Morse code so that I could tap out a message. But most humans don’t know Morse code. Even if mine did, they see and hear what they expect to see and hear. They don’t expect Morse code from a dog, so they wouldn’t notice if it happened. I could work myself into a frenzy. Forget about Morse code. I could tap dance like Fred Astaire at the peak of his career. My humans would assume I was having a seizure and rush me to the vet.
Resigned to a lonely existence in which my genius went unrecognized, I made the most of what I had. My humans were kind. My canine and feline siblings, though not very bright, certainly knew how to play, and the cats liked to groom me. As a Chihuahua, I was roughly their size, so perhaps they thought I was one of them.
I sneaked books off the lowest shelf to read from time to time. Paws aren’t really well adapted to turning pages, but I managed. The fact that no one knew about my brilliance didn’t mean I couldn’t take advantage of it when I had the time.
The years rolled by, much faster for me than for my humans. By the time I turned sixteen, my joints had begun to stiffen. I walked more slowly. Running? That was only a memory. Jumping into someone’s lap? The best I could do was sit at a human’s feet and hope for a lift.
The worst part was that I had to wear a diaper. Appalled by the indignity, I became the Houdini of diapers, always finding ways to escape. But whenever I did, my humans sighed and diapered me again. I couldn’t say I blamed them. But I couldn’t help longing for the old days, when I hadn’t needed to be diapered.
Odysseus’s dog, Argos, was supposed to have been more than twenty years old when he died. By sheer force of will, he survived long enough to see his human one more time. I doubted I was going to break or even equal his record. I sometimes felt inexplicable chills, as if some canine grim reaper carrying a little scythe in his mouth stood in the shadows, watching me.
Every time I went to the vet, I wondered if he would find something he couldn’t cure. Would this be the time he would recommend what humans euphemistically called putting me to sleep?
If someone used that phrase in my presence, I would have been tempted to quote one of Hamlet’s speeches.
“To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…”
Of course, since I’d have to bark the lines, they would have lost something in the translation. Anyway, though Shakespeare might not actually have written the plays attributed to him, I’m reasonably certain the author wasn’t a dog. That means he wouldn’t have been conscious of how we view death.
It wasn’t the dreams—presumably, the afterlife—that we needed to worry about. Aside from dogs trained to be vicious or contracting rabies—neither one of which was their fault—what sins worthy of Hell could dogs possibly commit? Humans might be unhappy when we relieved ourselves in the wrong place, but would such little transgressions justify eternal damnation? Even Dante at his most unforgiving would never have conceived of such a thing.
No, our fear was that there might be no dreams at all, that we would simply cease to exist. Eternal nothingness rather than eternal dreams might be our fate.
One night, I dreamed of death and awoke all twisted up in my dog bed. I must have been tossing and turning for a long time.
As I disentangled myself, I felt eyes watching me. Sure it was the doggie grim reaper, I stared into the shadows. But what emerged was even worse than I imagined.
Fur as black as midnight, eyes flashing red, a three-headed Cerberus emerged from the darkness. Well, not quite Cerberus. The ancient Greeks had never described red eyes like that. Also, he smelled like Hell—by which I mean that he had a sulfurous scent remarkably like brimstone.
My heart skipped several beats. I would have run, but there was nowhere to run. Anyway, my short, arthritic legs were no match for his long, thickly muscled ones. I had to settle for shaking and whining.
“I’m not here to kill you,” growled Hell Cerberus in a tone that was hardly reassuring.
“You…you can talk?” I asked.
All three of his heads looked at me with disdain. “You can talk. Why would you be surprised that I can?”
Keeping him talking seemed like a good idea—perhaps the only chance I had.
“Uh, in the myths, Cerberus never talks.”
The intruder’s growl sounded almost like a chuckle. “This isn’t a myth—and maybe Cerberus didn’t find anyone worth speaking to. Or maybe he wasn’t supposed to be fraternizing with the dead. Regardless, I’m not Cerberus. I just thought this particular guise might amuse you, given how well-read you are.”
“Who are you, then?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” growled the intruder.
It wasn’t even remotely obvious to me. I looked over at one of my canine brothers, lying in a much larger dog bed nearby. He was snoring loudly. No other sound disturbed the silence.
That could only mean one thing—my humans and my siblings couldn’t hear the stranger at all. I shuddered as I realized that no one would wake up and come to investigate. I was all alone.
And I was doomed.
My three-headed death sentence squinted at me, and the red glow of his eyes dulled a little. “Ever hear of the Beast of Flanders? That’s as good a name for me as any. You can call me Beast if you wish.”
He attempted a smile, but his face wasn’t built for it. The sword sharp fangs he showed were far from reassuring.
“Why do you look so frightened? I’m here to offer you everything you could ever want,” he growled.
“I don’t understand.”
“You already have magical intelligence—or so I thought, anyway. I’m here to offer you additional magic. Greater strength, greater speed, eternal youth.”
I’d read too much to swallow that pitch easily. I was well familiar with the trope that magic always comes at a cost.
“What, uh, what do you want in return?”
“Merely your soul.”
I should totally have seen that one coming.
“Reassuring as it is to find out I have a soul, I think I’d like to keep it.”
Beast growl-chuckled again. “What for? To get into doggie heaven? There is no such thing.”
“And doggie hell?” I asked.
For a moment, Beast’s eyes flamed, and he bared his fangs as if he wanted to bite my head off. Then he calmed. He must have really wanted my soul to show such restraint.
“If a loving and merciful God really existed, do you think he would run an eternal torture chamber? No. Think of your future as doing favors for me from time to time.”
“I’d be your slave?”
“You’d be my…partner,” replied Beast, though he seemed as if he had to force the last word out.
“That’s a generous…offer,” I said. “I think I’ll pass.”
“I know what is in your heart,” said Beast, staring at me with all six of his eyes burning like fire. “You are lonely here, where nobody understands you. You fear death. I can solve both problems.”
I’d read or seen many versions of the Faust story. They almost all ended up the same way. Even so, I hesitated.
I knew that there was probably a catch somewhere. But would I really end up worse off than I already was?
Beast was right. I didn’t want to die.
“What kind of favors would you ask in return for all of that?”
Beast lifted up a paw and looked at it as if studying his claws. “Trifles, really. The first one would be severing all ties with your humans.”
His words made my blood run cold in my veins. My humans were like parents to me. They sheltered me, fed me, walked me, took me to the vet.
They protected me even when it wasn’t convenient for them. In the dark hours of early morning, when I invariably needed to relieve myself, one of them always went into the backyard with me so that the coyotes wouldn’t get me. I could sometimes smell the creatures, occasionally feel their eyes upon me. I would have been no match for them had they chosen to attack. But they wouldn’t take on a human, so I was safe.
But if I were immortal, I would not need protection. My humans would miss me, but they had my siblings to comfort them, and without the deal, I’d be dead soon, anyway.
I would miss them, but centuries from now, I would still be alive, young, and healthy.
“I accept your terms,” I said.
Beast made another attempt to smile. He raised his right paw. Instinctively, I knew what he wanted. It took a lot of effort, but I managed to raise mine enough to touch his. Fire burned me, but only for a second.
“The deal is done,” said Beast, lowering his paw.
I felt young then, young as if I were barely out of puppyhood. But I also felt far stronger and much faster. Bring on the coyotes! Bring on the whole pack! I could take them all on now and not even work up a sweat.
“Are you satisfied?” asked Beast. I wagged my tail furiously.
“In that case, kill your humans, and we can be on our way.”
Yes, there was a catch, and it was big enough to rip my heart from my chest and leave it bleeding on the floor.
“Kill them? But you just said, ‘sever all ties.’ I thought that meant leave and never come back.”
All three heads nodded at me. The movement was almost hypnotic.
“It does,” said Beast, making that hideous pseudo smile at me. “In part. But to sever the emotional ties, you must kill them. Nothing else will do.”
“I will not!” I said.
The Beast shrugged. “If you refuse to uphold the terms of our deal, you will forfeit all the gifts I have given—and your life.”
I had never been brave, perhaps because I’d never needed to be. I didn’t really know how. I couldn’t kill my humans. But I still didn’t want to die. Even powered up as I was, Beast could tear me to shreds if he chose to do so.
I’d never prayed before. Nothing I’d read or seen suggested that God listened to the prayers of animals. Then again, most animals lacked the intelligence to understand abstract concepts well enough to pray.
“God, unworthy as I am, help me! This furry Satan wanna-be has tricked me. I would never have agreed if I had known what he really wanted.”
“Well,” said Beast, thrusting his three heads at me. “What is your decision?”
“You should have known,” said a voice in my head. “Of all dogs, you are best equipped to understand,”
Could that have been God? The words sounded as if they were barked rather than spoken.
“I haven’t got all night,” said Beast, clicking his claws on the floor to underscore his impatience. “Choose.”
“I know I should have understood,” I replied to whoever had responded. “But my reading also taught me other things. From Marlowe’s Faustus, I learned that God would have rescued Faustus had he not delayed his repentance for so long. From Yeats’s Countess Cathleen, I learned that someone who used a pact with the Devil to do good could not be damned.”
“And what good did you intend to do?” asked the barking voice.
“Uh, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But the Faustus precedent still holds. I just agreed seconds ago. Faustus waited seven years.”
Silence echoed in my head.
Beast breathed a little fire in my direction, just enough to let me know he was serious. His eyes glowed with fury.
I’m ashamed to say I froze. I couldn’t summon up the courage to tell him to go to Hell. At this rate, I’d have to join him there.
A blinding flash broke me out of my paralysis enough for me to jump back. When my vision cleared, I saw an enormous greyhound standing next to Beast. The newcomer glowed faintly, and a brighter glow around his head might have been a halo.
“I’m Saint Guinefort…unofficially,” said the greyhound in the same voice I had heard in my head.
“You have no business here!” growled Beast. “Begone!”
“He has prayed, and I have answered,” replied Guinefort. “You have deceived him, and your deal is void. It is you who must be gone.”
“I will not—” began Beast. Guinefort didn’t move. However, white light lashed out from him like a whip, slicing off one of Beast’s heads. The creature howled and vanished in a sudden burst of flame. Not even a single drop of blood or burn mark on the floor remained to show that he had ever been there.
“I hope you know what this means,” said Guinefort.
“I do,” I replied, walking shakily back to my bed. “No strength, no speed, no immortality.”
Guinefort nodded. “The truly repentant can escape a diabolical deal, but they must give up whatever they got from it.”
“It’s all right,” I said as I settled into my bed. My joints had started to ache again. “You did more than I had any right to expect.”
Guinefort smiled at me and vanished. I could have talked myself into the idea that the whole experience had been a dream, but I knew better.
I was old again, and I would die. But I would still live in the hearts of my humans.
Beast had misled me in one other way. There was no “doggie heaven”—because good dogs went with their human family.
How else could it really be heaven—for any of them?
I write about a fictional dog named Cerberus. Not that one- she only has one head (but an excellent brain) and smells much nicer than Hell.
I really enjoyed this! It makes me wonder if the phrase “all good dogs go to heaven” exists in your universe. Would the hyper-intelligent dog dismiss the phrase? It could be argued that they receive their ticket to the afterlife for loyal service to their humans. Having the ability to think could jeopardize that agreement, as he could see the benefit of disloyalty. Ultimately earned the same reward for showing loyalty in the face of the greatest temptation.
I also enjoyed how you handled the sophistication of readers. In centuries before, the audience was not as hip to story tropes, but now media is everywhere and the majority have encountered a Faustian tale, so they know what’s coming. You did a great job of undercutting that expectation and transforming the trope.
I’m excited to explore your offerings. If you have a suggestion I would appreciate it… you seem prolific.