Sometimes, late at night, you close your eyes and try to picture him, even though he is lying next to you. It’s a test that you have developed, a test of your devotion. Is he the one that fate has ordained? Even as you ask yourself that question, you know that he isn’t, that by virtue of having to ask the question, you have annulled the validity of it. You squeeze your eyelids tighter together, forcing an image of him into your consciousness. But no matter how tightly you close your eyes, or how hard you concentrate, or how much you try to picture him in a scene at his work, no matter how much you try to envision him, he is only a shadow, an outline of a body without a face.

You sigh in frustration and he rolls over, pulling you into his strong arms. He reminds you of a bear (an image that you can easily bring to mind). A large black bear raking the side of a tree one moment then dropping to all fours as it lumbers away the next.

"Marry me," he whispers for the hundredth time, pulling you closer.

"Okay." You reply, not meaning the words, as they have become an automatic response over the last few months. Saying yes is just easier than arguing.

Conditioning is what the dog trainer had called it when had taken your coyote/wolf mix to obedience class.

"Aversion therapy is the result of negative reinforcement. This, my friends, is the key to working with animals. You are working to elicit a response." The trainer’s voice echoes through your mind.. "Animals respond to negative stimulation far more intensely than they do to positive reinforcement." He demonstrates by attaching a shock collar to a large Rottweiler.

This particular animal had a propensity to attack smaller dogs in the class. We wait expectantly as the large Rottweiler snarls, then lunges towards a toy poodle. Suddenly, a sharp yelp as the big dog falls to the ground in the middle of the attack. The Rottweiler looks around, confused, but still draws the connection between pain and attacking another animal.

You look at your dog. Only a few days previously, he had worn that same collar for a similar offense. But while the Rottweiler would likely never attack again for fear of shock, your dog had attempted it again only a few hours later, using a slightly different method than the first time. The others in the class call him a stupid animal. But in that stupid animal, you recognize an intelligence that exceeds most humans you have known. After the first shock, your dog understands that pain only occurs when he wears the specialized collar, during which time he behaves like a prize winning show dog, a concept that the other dogs will never understand.

You feel your neck but find no collar. Yet the words you had murmured only a moment ago were still a conditioned response. You move out of his arms and climb from the large bed, searching for water, you say. But you are really searching for something else. The truth is there waiting for you to grasp it, and instead you swat it away like a troublesome fly...