“Excuse me, but can I touch your dog? Would you mind? Would he? It’s the ears you see, I can’t get the ears.”

Owners of greyhounds in the north of the town are advised that they may be approached by a polite elderly man who asks if he can touch their dogs’ ears. If given permission, he then closes his eyes, touches the ears and walks swiftly away, smiling and looking at his hands. Police say that there is currently no cause for alarm.

At home in his workshop, Malcolm feels the essence of the dog in his fingers, through his chisel, as it bites into the wood. This time the dog in his mind, in his fingers, will emerge.

Published on FlashFlood, the National Flash-Fiction Day journal, http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/ 17 April 2015