Worlds Apart
Phil is a quasi-underworld businessman of 35. When his mistress dies under shady circumstances and his wife consequently threatens to divorce him, Phil is overwhelmed with regrets and doubts. He flees everything to visit Charlie, a gentle philosopher/crackpot he roomed with in college but has not communicated with for more than 10 years. Maybe Charles will have some answers for him — or maybe they’ll argue again and Phil will invent new rationalizations for his decadence.
Charlie’s farm is vacant, but Phil breaks in and plans to wait for his old friend’s return. The place is full of Rube Goldberg devices, mystical/magical artifacts, books, typewritten manuscript. Oddly, the croplands are fallow. Then Phil discovers a roomful of gold ore, which explains how Charlie is able to support himself without farming.
Phil meddles with some ritualistic devices and finds himself being pulled towards the rising full moon. The force gets stronger and stronger until he can barely hang on to the Earth. He starts a fire to attract the local firefighters, but they arrive too late and Phil plummets towards outer space.
He lands on a strange desert world between the Earth and Moon — one or the other of them is always in the sky. He is alone for a long time and gradually begins to appreciate simple satisfactions like cooking a meal he has harvested or lying meditatively under the stars. Then he is captured by barbaric dog people. To save his own life he resorts to his old ways, and soon he is their leader. At first he reverts to his accustomed role of mobster. But he comes to care about the foolish curs, to admire their honest passions and earnest faith. He leads them in battle against a city of dogs, only to discover the leader of that group is his old friend. Charlie is no longer passive and reflective. He is a warrior, and he seems to have forgotten Phil entirely.
Eventually, the two men face one another in combat and Phil is nearly killed. Then something in Charlie reverses itself. He fights his own cronies to rescue Phil and the two men flee into the hills, both of them without allies now.
After some tentative apologies they begin to argue. For the first time in his life, Phil really cares about something outside himself — his guerilla dogs — and he sees Charlie’s dogs as oppressors.
Charlie sees the desert dogs as barbarians, killers, that must be exterminated.
The two men fight. It is THEIR fight this time.
The battle is stopped by dogs from both sides. The dogs say it is time to stop interference from the humans: dogs must decide for dogs.