"Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle
Originally published at The Mossy Skull. Please leave any comments there.
First printed in F&SF October 2005
Well it is pretty clear why he got the Hugo for this. How exactly did he manage to bring me so close to tears over the death of a fictional dog-and in the length of a short story? I suppose he had The Last Unicorn to lean on. I knew these characters from before. Some of them. Though not, in fact, the ones that made me cry. So no, that isn’t it. I must study this. Nothing I’ve written has ever felt that real. Instead I do these tongue-in-cheek parables, these self-aware commentaries on real emotions, even when I set out on purpose to do no such thing.