The Nine Billion Names of God

The narrator wakes suddenly upon hearing his dog, Laika, barking incessantly. He is annoyed and tells her to be quiet. Then he remembers that Laika is not with him. He is on the moon, and she has been dead five years. He opens his eyes and realizes he was only dreaming about his dog. He looks at his empty cabin and feels a “sense of loss…so desolating that I longed to return to sleep” (80). He explains that if he had gone back to sleep, rather than staying awake to reminisce about his departed dog, he would have died. In five minutes, a terrible earthquake will hit. Before this happens, however, he recounts the story of how he came to own a dog and live on the moon.

On his way to the Observatory in Palomar, the narrator finds a puppy abandoned on the side of the road. He names the dog Laika and suffers through her destructive puppyhood. She grows into an attentive, intelligent dog. He doesn’t know why, but they form an intense attachment.

One night while staying with university colleagues, Laika wakes the narrator up with her obnoxious barking. Coming downstairs to quiet her, the narrator is intensely annoyed with the dog.