A Cellarful of Nose - Future Shoes

to me. I pretended I was waiting for a bus, glancing at my pawwatch
to check the time. I rocked on my heels, and whistled a
tune. When a car drove by too quickly and splashed slush onto
my feet, I made the Italian fungoo sign at them as they sped away,
laughing.
Then I became: the man who awoke to find himself changed
into a dog. Like Gregor Samsa in the Franz Kafka story, trapped
in a large cockroach's body, only I was a dog. I paced around
frantically, pretending to pull my head off, only to discover it was
my real head. I was acing out a horror story, but no one showed
sympathy. I waved at passersby signaling that I needed help in the
most urgent way. I even stepped into traffic a bit, as if I might
stand in front of a car to get it to stop. You should have seen
people's expression, delight fading into something unnerving.
Then the metamorphosis deepened, and I became the most
frightening apparition of all: the man who really was a dog. All
human perspective was gone now. I was a tall dog standing on its
hind legs, teetering close to traffic. This was serious. I could bolt
into an oncoming car, or nip a passerby in my confusion. I looked
around me at the world of people, orderly for them but
incomprehensible to me.
Soon, my coat blanketed with wet snow, but my mask wet
inside from perspiration, I trudged lock back to the bakery, undid
the dog's head, and felt the cool human air rush to my slick face.
Business was booming; we wound up raising $7,000 from sales of
bread for the school. Things began making sense again.
But too late for me. I am changed now. I realize dogs in
human society feel almost constant fear. And I am haunted by my
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