The Fish and the Not Fish by Peter Markus

says to us, It’s your choice.
    If you change your minds, Death tells us.
    We take hold of Dead Dog by the scruff of fur on the back of Dead Dog’s neck.
    We give Dead Dog a pull for the hole that is the door to Death’s house.
    Dead Dog turns his head and takes a snap at the hand that he knows that this hand, it is not the hand that feeds him.
    Dead Dog looks like the kind of a dog that is fed food spooned out of a tin can.
    Death’s house, it seems to us, has been good to Dead Dog.
    Dead Dog’s fur shines black like the back of a bird’s black wing.
    Hey, Dog, we say to Dead Dog.
    We say, Don’t you know who we are?
    We lift up our hands.
    Our hands curl up to make four fists.
    We tell this dog of ours, No.
    No bite.
    Dead Dog growls at us boys to step back.
    We take two steps back.
    Good dog, Death says to Dead Dog.
    Sit, Death says.
    Dead Dog sits.
    Us boys, we look back at Death.
    At Death’s face.
    Fat face, one of us says so that it is just us who can hear it.
    We’ll be back, we say.
    I’m sure you boys will, Death tells us.
    We turn to leave.
    We make our way for the hole in the wall that is the door to Death’s house.
    Death says, with the fat on his fat death face rolled up to form a grin, Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

VIII.
DEAD DOG SLEEPS
    That night, we go back to the house of Death.
    To go and get Dead Dog back.
    To go and save Dead Dog from Death.
    We go up slow on the tips of our boot toes to look in through the hole that is the door to the house that is Death’s.
    We see that Dead Dog is curled up at the foot of Death’s bed.
    Here, Dead Dog sleeps.
    The fat on Death’s fat face puffs up and it puffs out when Death in his dead man’s sleep breathes in and then breathes back out the breath that is the breath of Death.
    The breath of Death smells like feet do when you take off your boots to let your feet breathe at night.
    It is night right now and all we can see is a dark that makes us boys think of death.
    Of things that are dead in the night.
    There are ghosts in these woods that at night make sounds that some folks say are the sounds that trees make when the wind blows through their leaves.
    Us boys know that these sounds that we hear in the woods at night are not the sounds that trees make when they are blown here and there and back and forth in the night’s breeze.
    We have seen, at night, and with our own boy eyes, what us boys know are ghosts.
    But we don’t call these things that we see ghosts.
    We call them Death.
    There are nights when Death walks through these woods on the look out for things like us to eat.
    When we sleep, on nights like this, we sleep with our arms crossed on top of our chests.
    We can feel the beat of our hearts beat and beat hard with our wrists.
    When Dead Dog used to sleep by the foot of our beds, there was no need for us to not sleep.
    If Death walked in our room, Dead Dog would have been sure to wake us.
    Dead Dog would take a big bite out of Death’s big butt.
    But that was then.
    And now is now.
    Now Dead Dog sleeps by the foot of Death’s bed.
    What are boys like us to do?
    Us boys, let us tell you what boys like us are to do.
    We have got to go and get back Dead Dog from Death.
    We have got to go back to town to where Death’s house is and we’ve got to steal back Dead Dog from Death.
    Which is why us boys are here right now like we are at the door to the house of Death.
    Dead Dog, we hiss, through this hole in the wall in this house where Death lives with no dog that is his own to keep watch with.
    To this hiss, Dead Dog does not lift up his head.
    Dead Dog looks like he is dead.
    Us boys, we know that this dog is not dead.
    Don’t let this dog fool you like he once fooled the both of us.
    One of us boys picks up a rock with his hand and throws it so that it hits Dead Dog right in his dog head.
    One of Dead Dog’s eyes lifts up.
    One of Dead Dog’s eyes