The first time, it was easy to chalk up the sighting to “coincidence.” Just as it was the second time and, hell, even the third time. But the fourth time Rosa saw the same lithe, blue (which means gray, in this case) greyhound—confirmed not only by the actual rarity of that color in greyhounds, but also by the owner shouting his name (“Stylo! Stylo!”) again—she was slightly unnerved. After all, it wasn’t as if she had gone out for her walk in the woods (or bois, as the French say) at the same exact time, or even on the same exact route. Shouldn’t that have given her some guarantee that she wasn’t going to see them? The hours of the day and the places she went in the bois were so disparate those four times that it should have ensured no sighting whatsoever after the first instance. Especially since old ladies—and Stylo’s owner was an old lady—were such creatures of habit. Routine. What could possibly prompt this woman to be so erratic? 

Unless, of course, it had nothing to do with “erraticness” and everything to do with being trapped in some kind of simulation. That’s right—a matrix. It wouldn’t be the first time Rosa had suspected this of being the case. She had always noticed little signs. Sort of the way Truman Burbank did for most of his totally manufactured life. But lately, such “little signs”—so-called signs that another person might credit as being a symptom of Rosa “being overly paranoid”—had been cresting. And these encounters with Stylo (or whatever the dog really was) were the most prime example yet. Which was upsetting, because Rosa did so love dogs and this was not a positive association at all. No, it was very negative. And that negativity was compounded by the coarse, crude greeting she received from Stylo with each “passing” in the bois. And that consisted of him barking almost rabidly at her, leading her to believe he might all-out attack her at any second. He was practically frothing at the mouth. But it wasn’t just Stylo’s unnerving barking that set Rosa on edge, oh no. It was the fact that his owner let him go around leashless, and Rosa wasn’t always so certain that the mere call of his name by his master would be enough to stop him from bounding viciously toward her and planting a bite right on a piece of her tender flesh. Rosa could tell there was little holding him back (apart from the faint sound of his maîtresse’s voice) from doing just that. And she could tell, with each fresh run-in, that every meeting was a tempting of the fates to go “off-script” and defy whatever rules the matrix had established for him—programmed him to understand. 

As for the old lady, who Rosa inwardly referred to as Psychobiddy (ageist though that might have been), she appeared less and less inclined to “control” her animal with each “chance” rendezvous. As though she had no strength of will to pretend she gave a shit anymore after a certain number of path crossings (by now, it had racked up to being in the double digits). Or maybe “the simu” simply hadn’t designed her well enough to accommodate a diverse array of reactions. Particularly as They (or “It”) didn’t bother to populate the bois with any other “extras” to distract Rosa from how incredibly “odd” Stylo and Psychobiddy were. If for no other reason than because they were the only living creatures (apart from the trees) for miles. As the seasons changed, these encounters kept happening. But Stylo’s irascible nature was becoming more and more dangerous. Psychobiddy told Rosa, in simple, clipped phrases (further adding to her belief that the simu must not have been able to render Psychobiddy as very conversationally advanced), that Stylo was threatened by the fur coats Rosa had taken to donning for the winter season. Psychobiddy claimed these types of garments were what set Stylo off, made him think Rosa was another animal he ought to defend his maîtresse from. Rosa was wont to believe otherwise. That something within Stylo’s “computer makeup” had gone haywire, and this “fur coat makes him/it upset” excuse was a byproduct of that. 

Of course, Rosa wouldn’t dare say such a thing out loud to Psychobiddy, let alone any of the few people she counted as part of her “circle.” In truth, Rosa was becoming so paranoid as a result of these “bois walks” that she was even starting to doubt if she could trust those she once would have easily said were “close confidants.” What if, “in reality” (whatever that meant anymore), she couldn’t trust them at all? And if not them, then who? Her parents? And then it hit her: what if they weren’t her parents? More Truman Burbank-esque shit. For all Rosa knew, maybe she was adopted by a TV or movie studio after her real mother’s own unwanted pregnancy, and the people she thought, all this time, were her parents were merely well-paid actors instead. Or, likelier still, simulacrums of a more The Matrix-inspired nature. Whatever the case, it was apparent some late 90s movie premise was at play. How else could the ubiquity of Sylo and Psychobiddy be explained? Granted, Rosa had to admit that Stylo (pronounced “Stee-lo”) was a somewhat creative name for a dog in a simulation…or was it? Was such a name all just part of throwing her off the scent of what was “really going on”? What that might actually be felt impossible to decode, but Rosa was almost certain that whatever was afoot, it could be nothing short of nefarious. 

To boot, Stylo meant “pen” in French, so maybe that moniker was simply a sadistic joke on the simulation’s part. A way to “subtly” inform Rosa that this greyhound was part of whatever was writing her existence. To test the theory that she wasn’t truly in control of anything happening around her, Rosa began to experiment more outrageously with her bois routes and the times of day she would go. Sometimes venturing into the woods three or even four times in a single twenty-four-hour period to confirm what had already shaken her to her very core: Stylo and Psychobiddy were always present at some point along the way. And each time, Psychobiddy appeared unfazed—hell, as if she’d never seen Rosa before in her life. Which added even more eeriness to the bizarre phenomenon. The more Rosa tested the confines of the small French town she lived in, the more she realized that something about it was horribly, horribly wrong. 

Taking into account her newfound paranoia about confessing this strongly-held belief to anyone, Rosa was starting to feel, increasingly, like a rat in a cage. Trying to “get out for air” to remedy that sentiment was also, obviously, no longer working. She feared the bois now, like it was some kind of plague. And maybe it was. Maybe it was the key to unlocking the reason behind why the entire town was a “simu.” In fact, Rosa was having a hard time remembering when she last even left the “jurisdiction.” Almost like she had some kind of block, some…amnesia. Coming to terms with being totally unable to recall an “episode” when she had recently left town—a white blank appearing with every attempt to do so—Rosa began to descend into a more than mild panic attack. Soon, she was buckled over in her kitchen, finding refuge on the floor after abandoning her attempt to make a cup of coffee. Later, she would find out that “being alert” was the last thing They wanted her to be. 

However, she was only briefly aware of some semblance of the truth upon returning to lucidity inside what appeared to be a silo as she glanced around her and then upward to process the unmistakable architecture of such a structure. Yet there was no living being in her midst, only a series of computers. Several of which were hooked up to her body…itself strapped to a gurney, she suddenly apprehended as she became more aware of her corporeal self. With absolutely no idea what was going on or who had brought her to this ominous milieu, all Rosa could do was wait.

As it turned out, for no one. Within a matter of minutes, the machines around her had processed her “awakeness” and promptly proceeded to “deactivate” her. The final image she saw before being “recalibrated” again was Stylo’s snarling face in the bois. After that, it all just snapped to blackness. The next thing she knew, she was in the bois again, her previous consciousness eradicated as she inhabited the form of the woman “Rosa” (or rather Rosa’s flesh suit) had called Psychobiddy. And Psychobiddy was only too happy to walk the thing named Stylo in the bois ad infinitum. No questions asked.