On the Rooftops by Alex Sheal

Our new mayor, a rat of his word, announced the crackdown after inauguration.

 Rottweilers were rounded up first, muzzled, then marched out of town. Few onlookers said a word: a notorious mauling years back stayed fresh in the memory. Next came the Dobermans: a more refined breed, but reputed to bite. And who hadn’t bolted from such creatures, teeth clacking at the tail, or at least feared such a pursuit?  

But it was only the start. 

The mayor signed his orders on a Saturday midnight, and the Dog Squads were kicking doors by Monday morning. It was his idea of compassion, granting the condemned twenty-four hours for last strolls and buried bones. On Sunday, butchers brought their business door-to-door, and parks packed till sunset with gamboling pooches.

We’d hear the squads before daybreak, rat paws tramping up the street, and the chink of their chain link leashes. The watchdogs barked; and once a couple got started, the whole street would be howling. Still, some kept their maws shut, whether in resignation, hope, or out of spite. 

They collared the Alsations next; then the Bull Terriers. We saw breakneck pursuits in the week of the Greyhounds; but the Retrievers made the proudest stand, rushing their pursuers, golden coats like wildfire in the dawn streets. While the squads soon overwhelmed them, the mood had blackened. Those dogs still at liberty roved in packs, locking jaws on any creature they met. 

The mayor called a curfew, and the survivors, mongrels mostly, were corralled in one alley. The pack leaders demanded to know the fate of their cousins, to see their cages. 

The mayor addressed us: ‘Cats stay home’ he squeaked, ‘Nothing to fear from us rats!’ But we’d occupied the rooftops, about to pounce. 

Alex Sheal’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, North American Review, Litro and  3am. His fiction has won The David Higham Award and New Writer Novella Prize. A resident of  Hanoi, he is owner of photography tour company Vietnam in Focus.