October, 2026 I found him on the road.
A shivering, halfgrown puppy sat on the verge of the Aroad, rain slicking his fur, eyes fixed on the passing lorries as if waiting for someone. I was driving out to my sisters farm for some potatoes, eased off for a moment, thinking the little beast would just watch. The moment he lifted his head, everything changed. The potatoes stayed in the ground for another week.
I named him Mars. The name came from my neighbour, Margaret Clarke, when she spotted the orangeeyed, floppyeared creature in the hallway.
Ginger, nosy, a right scamp, she said, smiling. Mars thatll do.
I laughed then.
Mars grew fast. By spring he claimed the whole left side of the sofa as his domain and acted as if it were his birthright. At first I scolded him, then I stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat felt worse than sharing the bed with a snoring dog who occasionally thumped his leg in his sleep.
Our friendship didnt blossom overnight; it crept up like two strangers who have nowhere else to be. Morning walks, dinner at seven, the telly. Sometimes Id talk aloud to Mars; hed sit beside me, ears perked, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth in a harmless grin.
Youre right, Id say. Enough. And Id switch the TV off.
—
The accident came in April, on the way back from an evening stroll.
The details are hazy now. The road was slick, my car skidded onto the pavement, Mars was on his leash and the strap snapped. I was flung onto the curb, hit my side, lay there for a few seconds listening only to my own breath and a distant shout.
When I got up, Mars was gone.
The leash lay on the asphalt, its plastic clasp cracked clean in two.
I searched until midnight, combing three blocks, calling his name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One lad said hed seen a ginger dog dart towards the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but that was all.
Back home I sat at the kitchen table staring at an empty bowl.
Later I printed twenty flyers, stuck them on every lamp post in the neighbourhood, called three local vets and the rescue shelter on Willow Lane.
If a reddishbrown mixedbreed turns up, I told the person on the other end, please ring me. Heres my number.
A week passed. Then a month. The flyers faded in the May rain; I rehung them, and again in June. The clinics stayed silent. The shelter called twice, each time by mistake it wasnt our dog.
In July Margaret, from the hallway, said cautiously, Victor, maybe youd consider another dog? The shelter has plenty.
No, I answered.
She didnt press any longer.
The flat felt different without Mars. Not empty, just altered. The fridge hummed, neighbours clattered upstairs at half past nine as usual, but something was missing.
I picked up an old rubber ball that Mars used to chase down the corridor, placed it on a shelf, then shoved it back into a drawer, only to pull it out again later.
Every morning my hand reached for the leash by the door out of habit. It hung there, useless, because there was nowhere to go.
I kept walking the same route, at the same time, only alone. I couldnt explain why; I just kept going.
In August my daughter, Emily, called from Leeds.
Dad, come stay with us for a while. Rest a bit.
I cant, I said.
Why?
I paused. Maybe hell turn up.
Emilys silence lingered, then she said, Alright, in that voice people use when they have something else to say but hold it back.
Mars returned in October.
I heard a scratching at the front door just after eight. At first I thought it was the wind or a draft from the stairwell, but the sound came again, insistent, as if someone knew the door would open if they waited long enough.
I opened it.
Mars sat on the doormat, older now, fur trimmed in a few places where old wounds had healed, a slight scabbing on his left flank. Around his neck hung a leather collar, brown with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that read Buddy.
I stood there, mouth open, watching him. His right ear drooped, a ginger starshaped patch on his forehead, the same amber eyes framed by dark lashes.
Where have you been? I asked.
He leapt forward, trotted down the hallway like a man who knows every step by heart, headed straight for his bowl empty, as always.
I shut the door, shuffled to the kitchen, hands trembling as I opened the fridge.
Okay, I muttered. Okay.
The next morning I took him to the vet. They gave him the necessary shots, checked his microchip, and examined the unfamiliar collar. The vet read the tag aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone gave him a different name, I said. Hes lived somewhere else for half a year, I think.
She looked at me, then at Mars, then back at me.
Dogs do that, she said. They wander off and sometimes find their way back, especially the clever ones.
I said nothing, watching Mars sit on the metallic examination table, unfazed.
On the back of the tag there was a phone number. I dialed it from the car while Mars sat in the back seat, eyes glued to the window.
After three rings someone answered.
Hello? a middleaged woman said.
This is Victor. You had a dog, reddish, you called him Buddy?
A long silence.
Yes, she replied. He left us in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Silence again, then she said, He lived with us, we fed him, treated his wounds.
Thank you, I said. Hes a good dog.
She asked, Are you far from Willow Lane?
No, a different part of town, I replied.
She sighed. He turned up at our fence in April, just lay there and never left.
I watched the grey, leafless park outside my windscreen, poplars standing like sentinels.
The call ended. I put the phone away. Mars rested his head on his paws, eyes halfclosed.
Back home I took off the strangers collar, laid it on the table, and stared at it for a while. Brown leather, a brass badge, wellmade, not cheap.
Half a year somewhere else, and he still found his way back.
I thought of the woman from Willow Lane, how shed fed him daily, petted him, formed a bond, then in September she woke up and he was gone, searching, posting flyers.
I called her back.
Its me again, I said when she answered. If youd like to visit, I dont mind.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She came on Saturday Mrs. Gillian Parker, sixtyfour, in a grey coat, carrying a basket with apple jam and a sack of dog biscuits, the very treats Mars had grown used to during those months away.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt bolt. He nudged his nose against her palm and wagged his tail gladly.
They shared tea. Gillian recounted how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, how frightened hed been at first, then settled in. I told her about the crash, the broken leash, the flyers.
Mars lay between them, drifting in and out of sleep, occasionally lifting his head to look at each of us.
He chose both of us, Gillian said.
I glanced at the dog, then at her.
Seems so, I replied.
I slipped the foreign collar into the desk drawer, not discarding it.
Mars reclaimed the left side of the sofa, chased the ball down the hallway at night, while the flyers on the lampposts faded in the November rain and fell off on their own.
Gillian visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice about blackcurrants; she had a garden on Willow Lane, and I tended to a few plots of my own. We talked while Mars dozed between us.
One evening I pulled the leather collar with the Buddy tag from the drawer, turned it under the lamp. The metal gleamed.
Two leashes hung in the hall: one old red one, the other a fresh blue one Gillian had brought on a previous Saturday, silently, without asking.
—
Looking back, I realise that loss can carve a hollow in you, but it also teaches you where the heart truly lies. The lesson I take with me now is simple:no matter how far a soul wanders, love has a way of pulling it home.
