City of Night (61 page)

           And I know it will wait patiently for me, ineluctably, when inevitably I’ll leave this city again.

           And what has been found?

           Nothing.

           A circle which winds around, without beginning, without end.

           The clouds are storming angrily across the orange-gray sky. They rush at each other as if to battle. You know how it is in Texas each year before spring. One moment theres the stunning awareness that soon spring is coming, with the yellow-green clusters of leaves budding on the skeleton trees, hinting of a potential revival—soon, soon.

           And the next moment the fierce wind comes screaming, whirling the needle-pointed dust, stifling all hope. And you know then that what has not happened will never happen. That hope is an end within itself.

           And the fierce wind is an echo of angry childhood and of a very scared boy looking out the window—remembering my dead dog outside by the wounded house as the gray Texas dust gradually covered her up—and thinking:

           It isnt fair!
Why cant dogs go to Heaven?