Sleight of Hand Jack descended down to the pond and began walking. He ate his banana and kicked through leaves in Central Park, just listening to them crackle, thinking, thinking, thinking: his daughter, just off to college, his goddess of a wife. And him. He proceeded to walk a fast lap, his temple bowed forward, his eyes locked on the asphalt path. If what happened three months ago had been a dream, Jack would have been out on Great Lawn, kicking through leaves and tossing a frisbee to his dog, Mary, but it had not been a dream. Mary was dead, had been killed by a robber, stabbed with Jack’s own kitchen knife. There were flaps of skin sliced back off of the German Shepherd’s head, some spots revealing chalky skull. Eventually the knife found the dog’s eye, and that’s where it was when Jack came home. When Jack saw the dog lying there on the floor, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, her lips propped up on dry fangs in a mock-snarl, he sat down o n the floor and crossed his legs. He slid himself towards the dog until he came to her hind legs. He grabbed her thick brown fur.

Why

? he thought. It wasn’t the kind o f

why

that comes out of a naive sense that the world is supposed to be just. It was a curious

why

, like this is so strange that this exact ev ent happened to happen right at this exact time. Jack slid closer and stuck his other hand into the fur that covered her ribcage. Why this exact pattern of slashes on the dog’s head? He stuck his fingers deep into the flesh, trying to give depth to the muted sense that she would jump up and play-bite his hand. Why did he have a dog named Mary that in the first place? It all seemed impossibly improbable. But then there was no denying that, as improbable as it seemed to Jack, what was

was