Fiction

A pile of dogs was spotted this weekend in the park. It was a bit like John Carpenter’s The Thing except all the dogs were happy and wagging. I walked past slowly, unsure whether or not I was in danger. I was not, it turned out. The dogs began happy panting and the wagging became more intense and bizzare. I moved toward the dog pile and lifted my hand for a sniff, the universal sign of getting to know a strange dog. This dog was very strange. I watched as it tumbled closer to me. The nearest dogs heads with tongues wagging and the furthest dogs whining to be closer. ...

It started slowly, insidiously. It was a little like hair. Growing in the cracks and crevices underground, away from the sunlight. You saw it on the tube - platforms, tunnels - but a glance and then it’s gone, you ignore it. It was fine, so fine that it moved with the barest of breezes. Sometimes when you couldn’t detect a breeze. It was cleaned away, but would soon come back. Within a couple of days at first, then a day, then it grew back in a few hours. People started to notice then. Well, the people that cleaned started to notice. The billions of commuters and tourists didn’t notice, it looked like hair, it was mixed with hair, there was nothing to notice. ...