Monday, May the 1st, 2006
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There was a dog in a boat, and the boat was on a lake, and the lake was surrounded by mountains, and the mountains were high and snow-capped, and the air was clear and pure and the sky was blue. The dog was huge, it might have been a wolf, and it stood upright in the boat, alert and bristling. The boat was an ordinary wooden rowing boat but the oars were missing. The mountains were enormous. There were no birds in the blue sky and the pure clean air was very still. The boat was out in the middle of the lake, and water slapped gently at its sides. It was early morning. There was a tiny village at the foot of the mountains, at the shore of the lake, and everyone in the village was still asleep except for the dog handler, for the dog handler was dead. He had been mauled and savaged and his body lay rotting on the jetty that poked out from the village into the lake. At twilight, a detective will arrive in the village, having journeyed over the mountains on a donkey. By the time the detective arrives, the giant dog in the boat will have plunged into the lake and swam energetically to the shore, leaving the boat in the middle of the lake. And when the moon comes up the dog will be howling, howling and howling, howling and howling and howling and howling, somewhere in the mountains, and the detective will be sitting alone at a table in the village tavern, and his donkey will be tied to a post outside, and no one will sleep.
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