John Christopher - A Few Kindred Spirits

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A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS

by John Christopher

Nebula 1965 Nominee Short Story

Proofed By MadMaxAU

Dog lovers may or may not be happy to know that a canine plays a substantial part in the delightful tale

below, in which England's John Christopher lifts the veil to give us a glimpse into the world of the

homosexual dog. (And you still wonder why they're not naming 'em Rover anymore?)

* * * *

In the animal creation, as in the human, there are spheres whose existence remain unsuspected until

chance lifts a corner of the veil. One of these, as far as I was concerned, was the world of the

homo-sexual dog. I only became aware of it when Shlobber came into my life.

Shlobber, of course, was a classic text-book case for deviation. Absentee father (admittedly a norm

amongst dogs) and most decidedly possessive and domineering mother. She was black-and-white,

terrier-type, with admixture of collie and spaniel and more elusive extras, and Shlobber was a child of her

one and only litter. The intention was to get rid of all the pups to suitable homes, and this was, in fact,

achieved. Shlobber, however, having proved over-boisterous for one of the children in the billet we

found him, was brought back with apologies. Only as a transient, we thought, but somehow he stayed.

Mother went away to be spayed, returned with joy to find her golden-haired son still on the scene, and

launched into that career of aggressive, chivvying affection which determined and character-ized their

relationship. Hour after hour, day after day, she snapped and barked at him, and roughly bowled him

over. And he, for his part, was, somewhat resentfully, devoted to her.

His perversity emerged later, and was first apparent when the bitch further up the lane came in season.

She was, to human view, an ugly mustard-coloured ill-kempt creature, but as far as dogs were

concerned clearly of surpassing attraction. They came, it seemed, from the remotest corners of the island,

stampeding through our garden on the way. Shlobber, larger at eighteen months than his mother, romped

with her on the lawn, indifferent to all this. So I was not particularly surprised, a few weeks later, when I

found him out on his own and making overtures to a male boxer.

After that the pattern set in firmly, but I still thought of him as exceptional. This remained the case until

one day on the beach when he fell in with a roving pack of other dogs. There was a nervous-looking

Labrador-cross, a thin white creature with a funny head and popping eyes, a paunchy spaniel, and a

shaggy grey-brown beast at whose origins I could not begin to guess. Shlobber recog-nized these as

soul-mates right away, and bounded off with them along the sands. I whistled him back, and he came

slowly and re-luctantly. In the afternoon he disappeared, and did not return until late at night.

He remained devoted to Mother when he was at home, but from that point, increasingly, he took to

making excursions on his own. A couple of times I saw him on the beach with the same gang. They were

at a distance, and I preferred to leave it that way. I did not care to know him when he was in that

particular company, and I had the idea he felt the same way. There was no doubt that they were, in the

specifically pejorative sense, a queer lot.

The further, and disturbing, insight came one day in early sum-mer, when I had gone to the beach to think

out an awkward problem in a story I was writing. My mind often works better on the horizon-tal, and so

I lay on the sand and bent my mental energies to the task. But the characters who were giving trouble

were both impos-sible and dull and, lulled by the sun and the sporific surf of transistor radios, I fell

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