Editor-in-chief Jennifer A. Howard on today’s bonus story: Sure, the title (space dogs yes!) caught my eye, but it’s the intimacy of the narration here, the expansive meditation that builds from one tiny moment of noticing, that made me fall hard for this story.

Porcelain Soviet Space Dogs, Set of 4

Your first time at my place you notice the blue and white likenesses of canine cosmonauts and ask about their origins and orbits. I remember my mom asked if Laika returned and all I could say was in principle, in that universal sense, our deaths expected but still cruel. So instead I will tell you about Belka (squirrel!), Strelka (little arrow!), a grey rabbit, forty-two mice, two rats, and a variety of plants on one of several Sputniks. How Strelka had puppies, how Khrushchev gave one to Jackie Kennedy as a gesture of goodwill, how White House advisors thought the whole thing screamed Trojan horse, that the dog was probably bugged so the Russians could spy on national defense meetings, how America was built on malicious gifts, blanketed in poxed policy, so we find that same intent in others, think we know that move when we see it—shame recognize shame. But with the dogs I paint a poetic story of survival, the inane ways mankind wields a cosmic power we so barely understand. The way you can triumph over adversity you were subjected to by others, how you shouldn’t dwell on why the fuck it happened in the first place. Tiny, porcelain replicas honoring dogs who felt the freedom of weightlessness only to be taxidermied and put on display like tiny, porcelain replicas at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow. I am well-versed in all the charming ways one can creatively exhibit the commemorative souvenirs of a misguided mission, crafted in service of some greater good or in protection of a more attractive narrative, and I know how delicate such propaganda can be. I finally turn to look at you, hoping to catch your reaction, to see how my version has landed. You reach for the figurines but knock them over, and gravity yanks them to shatter on impact.

Taylor Alexandra Duffy lives in New York and works in research & development. She specializes in pending patents and penning short short stories. Find her at www.tayloraduffy.com.

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