The Dog on the Moor
By
Joel Tomfohr
Mom crashed her car on a winding road in the high hills above the black bay. She died at dusk. The ruptured fuel tank and a spark from the impact of the car against the hillside created an explosion that incinerated her body. Witnesses late to the site claimed to have seen a black dog capering along the dirt shoulder where her car went off the road.
Later that night, Mom came to me in a dream, as she was when I was as a child. She had milky white skin, pale blue eyes, a cool, loving face. “Meet me on the moor,” she whispered into my ear. “Please,” she said. “Please bring my dog back to me.”
This was how I came to be the guardian of Banshee, my mom’s black spaniel. The dog had a small patch of gray hair on her chin and cataracts in her eyes the color and shape of a full moon. Every night after the violent mangling and incineration of my mom, I took Banshee out on the windy moor in front of the bay, waiting for Mom to appear before me. During those rainy weeks of winter, we ambulated slowly over the hills above where the waves rushed to the rocky shore. I wished that the dog, too, would die. But I did not find my mom and Banshee did not die. I brought her back, again and again, but Mom was nowhere to be found.
Out on the moor, the copses of tall fennel shuddered in the wind and fog blew across the bay. Banshee lifted her nose.
The fragrance of anis in the air.
It conjured up the memory of absinthe in the bar in the old district of the foreign city far, far away, of me escaping the pain of Dad’s death. Sugar cube and matchstick. The emerald green concoction. Mirrors for three walls—hazy with age—and the fourth of wavy glass overlooking the street on which the strange shapes of revelers passed. I pushed through the front door out past a man smiling at me, a cigarette of tobacco and of hash between his long bony fingers.
“Would you like some,” he asked.
“I would.”
I drew the cigarette strongly. My senses became dulled, my vision blurry around the edges. I saw a black dog trotting down a cobblestone street, beckoning me to follow. Down the dark lane to find a man who would knife me and my own death wish, passed down to me from my father, would be fulfilled.
But that man never came for me.
#
Now the winter had passed since the fiery incineration of my mom, and still poor Banshee tottered by my side. One evening I decided that we should walk early into the morning hours and wait. I felt electricity in the air, and I knew that she would come. At the hour before dawn I saw a wanderer, walking like me and Banshee, out on the moor. The uncanny figure was wrapped in black raiment, its pale skin glowed. It came closer, and closer still until I could see that the figure was indeed the figure of my mom. Her and not her. Dead but not dead.
She had finally come to me as she said she would.
Banshee lifted her wet nose; I looked into her cataracted eyes the color of the full moon and in them I saw the death tableau of my father, noosed and hung from the rafters of the garage by his own hand. Banshee, the black spaniel, sat beneath him, only a puppy then.
My mother on the moor spoke. “I used to fear that you would you take your life like him. And I would be left with Banshee.”
But I did not die, and I suspected that it was the dog and not a wish written into the code of our shared genetic coil. Banshee, the real culprit behind the violent suicide of Dad, entered into Mom. She did not avoid the heartache of losing him, but she had had escaped the infinite sorrow of having her only child die before her.
“Bring me Banshee,” Mom instructed.
And so I gave her the dog.
Out on the moor she was no longer pale glowing white; I saw her burnt-up body, enshrouded by the fog. “My angel,” she said to me in the way that she used to when I was a boy. “My angel. Would you like to be with me?”
After some consideration I said, “Yes. Yes, I would.”
I followed her down to the shore through the fog and the wind and I left behind the sweet smell of anis and the moor I knew well. I waded into the bracing water where I could be pulled out to sea, and the mystery of our doomed family would die with us, never to be seen again.
Joel Tomfohr is a writer living in the Bay Area. He is the author of the chapbook, A Blue Hour (Bottlecap Press). His story, Sandia Is Spanish for Watermelon, was the winner of the RUNNR Residency Challenge (August 2025) and his fiction has been featured in Pictura, Centaur, Maudlin House, Bright Flash, Short Beasts, Bending Genres, Joyland, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, X-R-A-Y, BULL, Hobart, and others. You can find him online at joeltomfohr.com and on Instagram @thesword1979.
By
Joel Tomfohr
Mom crashed her car on a winding road in the high hills above the black bay. She died at dusk. The ruptured fuel tank and a spark from the impact of the car against the hillside created an explosion that incinerated her body. Witnesses late to the site claimed to have seen a black dog capering along the dirt shoulder where her car went off the road.
Later that night, Mom came to me in a dream, as she was when I was as a child. She had milky white skin, pale blue eyes, a cool, loving face. “Meet me on the moor,” she whispered into my ear. “Please,” she said. “Please bring my dog back to me.”
This was how I came to be the guardian of Banshee, my mom’s black spaniel. The dog had a small patch of gray hair on her chin and cataracts in her eyes the color and shape of a full moon. Every night after the violent mangling and incineration of my mom, I took Banshee out on the windy moor in front of the bay, waiting for Mom to appear before me. During those rainy weeks of winter, we ambulated slowly over the hills above where the waves rushed to the rocky shore. I wished that the dog, too, would die. But I did not find my mom and Banshee did not die. I brought her back, again and again, but Mom was nowhere to be found.
Out on the moor, the copses of tall fennel shuddered in the wind and fog blew across the bay. Banshee lifted her nose.
The fragrance of anis in the air.
It conjured up the memory of absinthe in the bar in the old district of the foreign city far, far away, of me escaping the pain of Dad’s death. Sugar cube and matchstick. The emerald green concoction. Mirrors for three walls—hazy with age—and the fourth of wavy glass overlooking the street on which the strange shapes of revelers passed. I pushed through the front door out past a man smiling at me, a cigarette of tobacco and of hash between his long bony fingers.
“Would you like some,” he asked.
“I would.”
I drew the cigarette strongly. My senses became dulled, my vision blurry around the edges. I saw a black dog trotting down a cobblestone street, beckoning me to follow. Down the dark lane to find a man who would knife me and my own death wish, passed down to me from my father, would be fulfilled.
But that man never came for me.
#
Now the winter had passed since the fiery incineration of my mom, and still poor Banshee tottered by my side. One evening I decided that we should walk early into the morning hours and wait. I felt electricity in the air, and I knew that she would come. At the hour before dawn I saw a wanderer, walking like me and Banshee, out on the moor. The uncanny figure was wrapped in black raiment, its pale skin glowed. It came closer, and closer still until I could see that the figure was indeed the figure of my mom. Her and not her. Dead but not dead.
She had finally come to me as she said she would.
Banshee lifted her wet nose; I looked into her cataracted eyes the color of the full moon and in them I saw the death tableau of my father, noosed and hung from the rafters of the garage by his own hand. Banshee, the black spaniel, sat beneath him, only a puppy then.
My mother on the moor spoke. “I used to fear that you would you take your life like him. And I would be left with Banshee.”
But I did not die, and I suspected that it was the dog and not a wish written into the code of our shared genetic coil. Banshee, the real culprit behind the violent suicide of Dad, entered into Mom. She did not avoid the heartache of losing him, but she had had escaped the infinite sorrow of having her only child die before her.
“Bring me Banshee,” Mom instructed.
And so I gave her the dog.
Out on the moor she was no longer pale glowing white; I saw her burnt-up body, enshrouded by the fog. “My angel,” she said to me in the way that she used to when I was a boy. “My angel. Would you like to be with me?”
After some consideration I said, “Yes. Yes, I would.”
I followed her down to the shore through the fog and the wind and I left behind the sweet smell of anis and the moor I knew well. I waded into the bracing water where I could be pulled out to sea, and the mystery of our doomed family would die with us, never to be seen again.
Joel Tomfohr is a writer living in the Bay Area. He is the author of the chapbook, A Blue Hour (Bottlecap Press). His story, Sandia Is Spanish for Watermelon, was the winner of the RUNNR Residency Challenge (August 2025) and his fiction has been featured in Pictura, Centaur, Maudlin House, Bright Flash, Short Beasts, Bending Genres, Joyland, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, X-R-A-Y, BULL, Hobart, and others. You can find him online at joeltomfohr.com and on Instagram @thesword1979.
