My headlamp eerily quivering its light on the ceiling above me, is startling. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep. It could have been hours or moments, it’s hard to tell. Pulling myself from bed, woozy from yet another nightmare, I hear a whimper, and figure the most obvious reason for Soter’s unease is that he may have to go to the bathroom. Leading him out the front door, the cold night air is a shocker as I step out in my socks and nightie, “Okay, Soter, go outside.”
His ears at attention, he hears it before I do, emergency sirens on Highway 14 careening through the valley. The parade of vehicles, lights up the narrow, moonless strip heading north towards Madrid. Soter howls, his song instinctual, is almost a bereavement as he’s joined by a symphony of town dogs. The red glowing ribbon loops the noctuary, and sends a chill to my bones but I can’t take my eyes away. His overture finished, he’s does his business, and we head back inside. “Come on, Soter.” I close the door behind us, and see something dark on the floor near the radiator. Soter sees it too and immediately puts his nose to it. A small black cricket. Its desiccated exoskeleton, empty and lifeless, didn’t make it through the early storm. Placing the critter’s body in the pot of an aloe plant, I head to bed cold, uneasy, and alone, as Remy has not found his way in yet, but the warmth of the heated mattress pad sucks me back into the unpredictable, subconscious.