Maybe I should save this for Wednesday, since it’s a recipe, but it’s also a sample from “Dog Star.” “Dog Star” is one of the stories in OTHER EARTH, OTHER STARS, a collection of some of my science fiction stories.

Dog’s Dinner

excerpt from “Dog Star”
by Marian Allen

Direct your attention, if you will, to Fiona. Cairn Terrier, twenty pounds of dark intensity, muscles and nerves of steel, wrapped in yards of gray shag. Observe her gleaming eyeteeth, her glittering eye. Do not attempt to extract that plastic action figurine from between her paws. She is not cuddling it, and she will not welcome your intervention. Fiona is my elder by three years, and I am five.

My name is Cyrano. I am, to an observable degree, Irish Setter. To her credit, Fiona, who is pedigreed and papered, purchased from a licensed breeder, has never made me feel my unmapped lineage.

The third dog in this adventure, the one we’ve never met, is a black Labrador retriever called Sparkle. Sparkle is the editor of “Sparkle’s Bark,” a newsletter to which I subscribe over the World Wide Woof. Every night, she sends out an issue filled with jokes, tips, and recipes.

Here’s my favorite of Sparkle’s recipes: Find a human who’s eating a sandwich–road workers, construction workers, or kids are best–and sit where they can see you. Don’t make a sound or a move, just watch them eat. If desired, cock your head and prick up your ears if they look at you, or you may move your eyes or your head to follow the sandwich as it moves to and from the human’s mouth. Before the sandwich is half gone, the human will either give you a piece of the sandwich or, ideally, remove one slice of bread and toss it to you.

I have personally tried this recipe many times, and I have never known it to fail.

~*~

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A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What dish can (or could) you always get someone else to make for you?