Cataract City by Craig Davidson Page A

“Plane or satellite?”
    “I don’t know. Which goes faster?”
    “I’ve never been in a plane,” Dunk said. “Or a satellite.”
    “We took a plane to Myrtle Beach on vacation,” I said. “And to Disney World.”
    “I used to ride my bike to the Point, where the river bends out before the Falls, y’know? I watched the planes come in. Some you couldn’t see until they were just about on top of you. They came out of the clouds real low, a big
whooosh
and there they were. Sort of like sharks, you know? A shark coming at you in the water—you can’tsee it until it’s just about in front of you. The grey planes looked especially like sharks. Scary but kind of cool.”
    The baby bird went up and down on his chest with each heavy inhalation. “Hey, Owe?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You think it’s true what Bruiser said?”
    “About what?”
    “Those dogs.”
    “In the satellite?”
    His face was still held by the sky, but I could tell this was pretty important to him. Could be he’d been sitting on it all day.
    “Maybe, Dunk. I don’t know … but not for sure.”
    “No?”
    “How far is another planet from here? Real far from where we’re looking, but maybe not. And a satellite goes pretty fast. Maybe they just drifted through space and landed on another planet.”
    “You think they could have?”
    “Why not? A planet we don’t even know about. Maybe it’s sunny all the time there. Maybe the water’s red.”
    “Red?”
    “Or purple or gold. Anything but blue. Maybe the sun is blue. Maybe meatballs grow on trees.”
    He laughed. “Meatball trees.”
    “Or maybe it’s a lot like here, but a long time ago. Like back in caveman times. Or … or nobody and nothing. Just the two of them.”
    “I guess they’d be scared.”
    I bent my knees and wrapped my arms around them. “But they’d already travelled through space, right?” I said, resting my chin on my kneecaps. “They climbed out of that broken satellite and breathed that fresh air and I bet it was pretty great. Mahoney said they were mongrels, right? They never had someone to feedthem. They could hunt and kill and drink water from streams.”
    “Gold water.”
    “Yeah, gold.”
    “What would they hunt?”
    I turned to face Dunk, resting my cheek on my knees. “I guess the same things they would hunt here. Rabbits and rats. Squirrels.”
    “You think they’d have rabbits on that planet?”
    “Maybe. Or maybe there the rabbits are big as cars. Maybe bears are small. Maybe you could hold a shark in your palm there.”
    “So they would run away from giant rabbits.”
    “And hunt tiny bears. Or maybe there are animals we’ve never seen.”
    “Things with tentacle faces. Things with lots of teeth.”
    “Harmless things, too. Things that look like baby chicks, only ten feet tall.”
    “A ten-foot-tall baby chick?”
    “No, just a yellow fuzzy thing who happens to be ten feet tall.”
    “Can it talk?”
    “I guess, but not in a language dogs would understand.”
    I tried to think about fuzzy ten-foot baby chicks, but I kept thinking about things with tentacle faces and lots of teeth.
    “Owe?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You think things might hunt
them
?”
    “… I guess so. But they travelled far and they were still alive. That has to count for something, right? So yeah, things hunt them. So what? Things hunted them here, too. The dog catcher, right? They just kept on going.”
    “Kept going, mmm, yeah.”
    “And maybe they found someplace safe. Or I don’t know, maybe the whole planet is run by dogs. They get to be, like, kings of Dog Planet.”
    “Why would they be kings? They just showed up.”
    “Well, whatever. Maybe one of them gives a very inspiring speech and they make him the president.”
    “Of the whole planet?”
    I shrugged:
why not?
    “Hey, Owe?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Meatball trees would be awesome.”
    “Totally. Eat them like apples.”
    “Oh, man! Big greasy apples … We shouldn’t talk about food.”
    I rolled