The Devil's Workshop

Jack looked up at Cinderhouse again. They were sharing a precious moment with the dog, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Cinderhouse was unable to appreciate what was happening. The bald man was pacing about uselessly, looking for a rock to use. Jack decided to ignore him. He turned his attention to the dog just in time to see that pleading expression leave its eyes. Its paws twitched one last time and it went still. He watched as it ceased being a dog and became something else entirely. He stopped breathing and his lips parted in awe. He felt he might pass out. This was the ultimate communication with the universe, and it had been denied him for so long.

Someone ought to pay for that.

He touched the dog again, but it no longer held any interest for him. It was already going cold. The rain beat against its blank eyeballs.

Cinderhouse shoved something at him, breaking his field of vision. A wooden rod, perhaps thrown off by a passing carriage.

“Use this,” Cinderhouse said.

Jack stood and stepped toward the rail. “You use it,” he said.

He kept his back to the bald man and listened, but could hear nothing over the sound of the rain. It was entirely possible that Cinderhouse would hit Jack with the rod and gain his freedom. Jack wouldn’t blame him at all. He would use the rod if he were in the bald man’s shoes. Or any shoes.

“It’s already dead.”

Jack turned and smiled. He reached out his hand and took the rod from Cinderhouse.

“You missed it,” Jack said.

“Poor thing.”

“Maybe. But we’re all going to die, aren’t we? We can’t all expect pity.”

“It didn’t have to die like that.”

“But it did have to die like that. It had no choice.”

“Not after the bus hit it.”

“The bus was simply a part of the process. The mechanism of transformation. We are surrounded every day by such machines. We are such machines.”

Cinderhouse stepped up to the rail as a carriage rolled by. Its wheels sluiced water up over the curb, over their toes. Jack watched the rain bounce off Cinderhouse’s smooth scalp as traffic began to pick up on the bridge. It was still dark, but the rain had already begun to ease into a gentle sprinkle. No carriages stopped for them, nobody wondered about the two men and the dead dog. Everyone had a place to go. Jack knew that if he gave the bald man enough time, he would speak again. Until then, he was content to stand and listen to the soft patter of rain on the canal.