‘He says it’s a fantasy. All his life, when he sees a dog, he can’t help playing this one fantasy in his mind’s eye. A kind of recurring daydream or waking nightmare. The fantasy is a big what-if scenario involving the dog. What if it spots him. What if it can tell he’s afraid. So when MacDougall freezes stone cold on the sidewalk and stares at the dog from across the street, he says, what’s passing through his head is that all these gears are turning: he’s imagining the worst that could happen. He takes my example for an illustration. Say MacDougall sees a lady with a dog. An older woman, white tennis outfit and sun visor, walking a golden retriever on the opposite sidewalk. The retriever is trotting happily alongside its owner, tongue hanging out. But internally, MacDougall is already asking himself: what if? What if the retriever spots him? He imagines that it stops trotting and pauses on the sidewalk. In the fantasy, its body goes rigid with tension the second it sees MacDougall. The lady, oblivious, stops walking as well. Thinking the dog just needs to pee. And maybe it makes a show of nosing the monkey grass, as if it’s interested in some scent there. But in truth it’s merely buying time to eye MacDougall. Even as it snuffles the grass, it keeps raising its liquid eyes to peer clear across the street at him, meeting his own eyes with a prison-yard stare. What would I do if this actually happened, is what MacDougall’s asking himself. And the answer is that he’d have to will himself to remain perfectly still. The last thing he wants to do, in the fantasy as in real life, is break into a run or any other sudden movement that will provoke the dog. Nor can he leave until the dog does, obviously. Whenever it lowers its snout to the grass, it keeps its wet dark eyes rolled upward slightly, to let him know it’s watching.’

‘You’re right. He would hate this movie.’

‘Too much grist for his mill—his fantasy’s sinister enough as it is. Because no matter how long he stands there, the retriever just keeps sniffing the grass. As for the woman, she remains completely duped by this little ruse of its. She has no idea what telepathic transactions are passing between her dog and MacDougall. Maybe she bends down to murmur something into the creature’s flappy ear, urging it to hurry up and “do its business.” But MacDougall is its only business. It has no other business in mind. Something about MacDougall has set it off, he can tell. A mistake or misunderstanding has taken place inside the dog, and it thinks that he means some harm to the woman.’ ‘The woman being essential.’

As in?’

‘As in an intrinsic component of the horror of the fantasy. It’s never with loose or wild dogs, the fantasy.’

‘I ask him that. Claims to have zero fear of wild dogs. If he sees a loose dog in the street, no owner in sight, or even if there’s a pack of them, his what-if scenario is over in seconds. Just reaches its logical conclusion. Oh, there’s something I forgot to mention.’