200/365 03/10/206

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax.Concentrate.

That ain’t my dog. The voice is hard-edged and harsh. Emphatic.

What?

That dog, there. He ain’t my dog. I got pride in my dogs, and I’m saying that one ain’t one of mine. I don’t know where he come from, neither. But he’s dumb as a bag of rocks. Don’t know how he makes it, day to day.

Your gaze travels across the brittle, brown grass to a dull-eyed mutt—brown and white—snuffling into an old work boot. The dog feels your gaze, raises up, the work boot firmly affixed to its nose.

See there? What the hell. Gambol! Get your damn nose out the boot!

The farmer, up until this point nothing more than a voice, now takes shape in your field of vision.