Marv, our black Lab, likes to begin his morning walk in the dark so he can watch the sun rise. He dances in small circles and fetches one toy after another until finally he finds the totem that will lure me away from the smell of coffee and buttered toast and into the misting rain. There are no streetlights where we live and cars seldom travel our road after midnight, so when the moon retires for the night, it leaves a pre-dawn darkness as deep and cold as black water.
As soon as we step out of the door, the darkness slips over Marv's sleek coat like a cloak of invisibility. Beyond the narrow beam of my head lamp, his glowing orange collar floats, unsupported, above the ground.
When we pass out of the wooded area where we live onto prairie of the neighboring national park, Marv gallops in arcing circles, and chases winding scent trails – tracking weasels or foxes, or perhaps a Snuffleupagas. If his collar disappears, a short whistle brings it back over the top of an unexpected hill, bouncing toward me until the head of a dog finally appears in my small bubble of light. Marv takes a treat off the palm of my hand with a wet swipe of his tongue and checks to see if I need anything else before he brushes past my leg, back into the darkness where he can shed his body again.
Curious amber eyes reflect the light of my headlamp as we follow deer trails across the prairie. Some eyes blink out quickly, others float eerily above the ground, circling us, until Marv's orange collar begins to bound toward them. The eyes of a fox become a streak of light that disappears with the whoosh of soft fur brushing a thicket.
Deer amble by, their neon green eyes almost at my eye level. During the day, Marv will run with them if they dare him, but in the dark they respect each other's invisibility.
Heavy wings whumpf in the dark. Owls are bulky, powerful creatures wrapped in an unsettling Zen-like calm. Surprise an eagle and it will shriek its battle cry and take wing in an explosion of feathers and talons. Surprise an owl and it will stare you down, silently.
Walking in the dark with a black dog is an act of faith, if faith is belief in things you cannot see. Belief that the terrain that is there during the day exists when it can't be seen. Belief that the glowing orange collar dancing in the darkness is still around the neck of the creature you put it on, that the wings beating overhead belong to a bird, not to a demon searching for a soul.
Things chirrup and bark, and sometimes crash and scream in the brush. A rooster crows in the distance like a banshee with a toothache. Raccoons tussling over ripe figs sound like fighting wildcats.
As the rising sun melts the darkness, Marv materializes inside his orange collar. Darkness clings to Mount Baker and the Olympic Mountains while the horizon lightens behind them. The colors of the day begin their dance across the Salish Sea.
Marv has watched the world reappear and he is ready to go home. There will be another day – more things to sniff, a trespassing cat to chase, perhaps a friend will drop by and challenge him to race. A day at the office lies ahead for me.
But sometimes the sun comes up before we're ready. Darkness is a playground for the mind and leaving it can be hard. Maybe that really was a demon that passed overhead; and those neon eyes could have belonged to a herd of camels, or perhaps unicorns that are as invisible by day as they are by night.
Marv probably believes his early morning dance and the offerings from his toy basket are what opens the door to a place where magic is still possible and the world is reborn every day.
He may be right.
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