Bloody Sunday

Last night I had one of the most disturbing dreams I can remember. For whatever reason, my family moved to the South (Bible Belt) region of the U.S. We came across a very large, and decrepit apartment complex that was built in a plantation style. As my mother, brother and I walked the dogs around the complex I noticed several white hoods scattered about the place. As comical as it may sound, I knew that I had somehow stumbled across the unofficial headquarters for the Klu Klux Klan. The rest of the dream consisted of my family and I sneaking through the complex, trying to escape undetected.
Unfortunately, a little old lady decided to grab a surgical screw that had been filed down to a sharp point and stabbed Teddy twice with it. As he lay dying in my arms I told my mother and brother to take Jonesy and leave the state. They asked what I was going to do and I answered that they knew what I was planning on doing and that I was ready to give my life for it.
They left and I took the screw out of Teddy's tiny rib cage and carried him around with me as I sought out the little old lady. I came up behind her and told her to turn around. She did. I then proceeded to stab her in the jugular. I watched as she bled out rapidly and her blood didn't touch me. The only blood I had on me was Teddy's. She slowly sank to the ground and I told her "I hope you suffer more than you've ever suffered in this life because you'll pray for my kind of justice when you're rotting in hell."
I have no idea where the hell this pent up rage and murderous rampage came from. Yes, I am a vindictive person. Yes, I crave revenge. But I have always used words to defeat my enemies.
The dream continued with me going door to door, gouging people's eyes out, ripping out their spines, breaking open their jaws, and all manner of torture my twisted mind could conjure up. All the while, Teddy's dead body was in my arms, his blood kept seeping out to cover my skin. One KKK member came out and shot me in the chest with a shotgun. I felt the pellets go into my flesh and scrape my sternum. I looked at him and told him he would be the last to die today. I started feeling the pain from my wounds growing stronger, but I knew that I had enough strength left to take his life. I took my surgical screw and disemboweled him -- medieval style -- letting his intestines hang over the balcony to the floor below. 
The last few scenes before I woke up were of myself walking down an empty dirt road, a green meadow on my right side and the sun in front of me. I chose a soft shady spot under a tree to lean on so that I could die in peace.

What's my interpretation for this dream? I don't have one, as of yet. I just remember looking for some kind of fulfillment in the dream. All I wanted was death all around me and for me to be the sole cause of it. I wanted to feel sad and mourn Teddy's murder, but all I felt was blood lust.

Maybe I watch too many Quentin Tarantino movies. Or maybe I do have a demon in me after all and she finally made her presence known. I know it's a female. This kind of rage can only be brought about by a woman that feels like her fetus has been ripped out of her womb. It's a little worrisome. But there are also other factors that could have caused me to crave such violence.

Creepy guys for example. I met a guy named John. He showed up out of nowhere. Immediately he told me he was a manic-depressive. My guard was already on alert, but after hearing that he was legitimately kookoocachoo, my guard tripled its defenses. For some reason, he liked me. He told me "You just exude so much sensuality. I have to try to take you home." I told him I wasn't interested. He kept repeating "It's just sex." I looked to my friend for help, but he provided none. I knew then that I was alone. I had to fend for myself and I was terrified. I didn't know what to expect from John. I thought that at any moment if I was too disgusted by his advances or defended myself too aggressively that his temperament would flip and he would stab me or something.

Now the dream makes sense. I forced myself to stay calm, to have a coy smile on my face, and to softly and non-aggressively dodge John's advances. My friend finally got the hint that I wanted to leave and was extremely uncomfortable. He left me alone for about ten minutes with John. So I made conversation and gave him a fake phone number and "memorized" his email address. I told my heart to stay in my chest cavity, and begged my blood pressure not to give me a heart attack. As my friend and I walked away, my feet wanted to run as fast as they would go and to never look back. 

My friend later told me that he got the same wacko vibe from John that I had felt.

My dream was a culmination of all of my defensive instincts that I had forced myself to stifle. Because I did not use the fight or flight response when I had felt threatened in a waking state, my subconscious decided to jolt my system with a horrible nightmare of the way I should react when my life is threatened. Point taken, subconscious, point taken.

A thousand rainy days since we first met

I am thankful that bad people do not stick around. Life gets rid of them. They grow bored of me and of my lifestyle. They leave to find a different source of happiness and light, because it is not for sale. If it is given, it is valued. My friendship is not something that can be conned out of me, bullied, or stolen.

Yesterday I was talking to my mother about one of these people. This person caused me some worry, and a few sleepless nights. My mother told me it was impossible for her to hate them. Before I could ask why, she raised her hand and told me to hear her out. "I saw how much they loved you, and to see someone love my daughter so much and to have the love be unrequited makes me sad. It's one of the greatest tragedies in life: unrequited love."

I got to thinking... am I a heartless bitch? I cannot help the way I feel. I cannot force myself to feel love for someone if friendship is all I want to give them. I can't shake this feeling that karma will come back to bite me on the ass.

But maybe she already has. It's only fair that the same thing happens to me. I'm not worried about that. I'm strong. I can survive heartbreak and pain caused by unrequited love. I just wish I could give this other person some of my strength, ease some of his pain. But silence speaks louder than words. And sometimes love is like a drug. My reaching out could cause them to fall off the wagon again; do more harm than good. Keep your mouth shut, girl.

Kevorkian Ideologies

Since Teddy is still wearing "the cone of shame" to prevent the licking of where his testicles used to be, I have grown accustomed to taking the dogs out into the backyard for one final bathroom break before locking up the doggy doors for the night. Teddy cannot fit through the doggy doors anyway because of his lampshade, but Jonesy (in his growing impatience and senility) has become rather fond of tearing through his special sized door to bark incessantly. There is a family of possums, which I have seen myself, that like to crawl along our back wall. They know our dogs are too small to reach them up there and must find it amusing to sit there, in the dark, listening to my poor old dog going apeshit crazy defending his home.
    But tonight, in particular, I put the dogs out back and went to brush my teeth in the bathroom, finished my skincare routine and got into my pajamas. I took my time so the dogs would be ready to come back inside when I was finished. Only this time, I forgot to latch up the doggy door that leads from our kitchen into the backyard. I lay in bed reading for about twenty minutes when Teddy started pestering me with his grunting that I assume he wants to sound like a bark. I asked him what he wanted and he crawled under the bed only to reemerge immediately. I took this to mean that he wanted something under the bed, but when I looked underneath I saw that Jonesy was missing. I quietly walked through my hallway, past the bathroom, past the living room, around the kitchen and looked out the kitchen door. In the moonlight I saw a figure about Jonesy's size lying on the bench in the backyard. I opened the door and Jonesy didn't even look at me. I sat down next to him and he looked at me once then continued to stare off toward the back wall where the possums like to make their midnight crossings. Jonesy was intent on the wall and hardly noticed me scratching his ears (normally his favorite area to be scratched). He usually collapses into soft sighs and nudges my other hand with his nose and rolls belly-up so I can rub his tummy and scratch his ears at the same time. This time he ignored me.
    I noticed that his fur was cold and slightly wet. Jonesy had been sitting outside staring at the wall for what I can only guess to be the full 20 minutes I had been reading. I called his name quietly a couple of times and his ears twitched to signal that he heard me, but his eyes stayed on the wall. He was tired. His eyelids kept blinking and I know my own dog's "sleepy look." But for whatever reason, my old boy was laying outside in the middle of the cold night guarding his house from an unseen enemy. I gently picked him up and his hind legs were limp in my arms. I brought him inside with Teddy following closely. And as I placed Jonesy on the floor it took him awhile to walk again. His legs were stiff and awkward as he stretched out the kinks that had gathered from being in one position for too long. I said "let's go to sleep." And he looked at me then turned to go back out the doggy door, but I had closed it. He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked at me, and walked to my bedroom where he collapsed under my bed on his warm piles of fluffy blankets.
    As I'm writing this, he's snoring under my bed. I occasionally hear him barking very softly as he dreams about chasing rabbits and running through tall fields of wet, muddy grass: the kind of dreams dogs love. But I can't help but think, or actually remember that Jonesy is thirteen years old now. He's an old dog. And I've been seeing signs of his decaying health for over a year now. He doesn't hear certain frequencies anymore. I used to call out "COOKIE!" and he would come running to the kitchen for a treat. But now.... I can say cookie up to ten times and if he doesn't want to move then he won't.
    I have had friends who make fun of me for how much I love my dogs, but I never took it to heart. Love is not an ability only afforded to humans. If anything, I believe that animals know how to love more profoundly than we do. Our love dissipates over time, and changes over fickle matters. Our love can become a form of obsession and illness. But love is what kept Jonesy alive.
    When he was ten, I chose to put Sadie (the female he grew up with) down. She was diagnosed with Diabetes. Don't ask me how a dog gets Diabetes, but I always suspected that only a tumor could cause that kind of spike in her blood-sugar and blood lab between a six month period. My mother was away for work in Indianapolis; my brother was in school, my father refused to make any decision. "She's your dog, so it's your choice." he said. He thought I would keep her alive. He thought I would be selfish and inject her with Insulin everyday for the measly extra year of her life that I could buy.
    While we were waiting for her results the vet asked what I was in school for, I said "English, but I'm going to be a doctor." He smiled at me. When I had first heard that Sadie had Diabetes I told my mother I wanted a second opinion. Dr. Gerghis was our second opinion. The results came back the same. Even though my father was in the room with us, Dr. Gerghis spoke to me. He said that in cases like Sadie's that "The insulin buys them one extra year of life, at most." I told him thank you and said I needed to go outside to make a call. He nodded and said he would stay with Sadie while we went outside to think it over.
    The second I heard my mom's voice I couldn't speak. My composure was gone. I sobbed the words out and asked her what I should do. She was in the middle of a conference so I heard her say "Hang on." She went outside and spoke softly to me. "Neni, you're the one that's there. You have all of the information in front of you. I trust you to make this choice for Sadie and for the family." I told her okay and handed the phone to my dad as he calmly explained everything to her. I sat on the curb outside the vet's office and stared off into space. I heard my parents' conversation, but didn't listen to the words. I knew what they were saying.
    My father hung up the phone and put his hand on my shoulder. My tears had dried on my cheeks. He told me "I don't care what it costs; we can keep Sadie alive for you." My father wanted to comfort me, but I knew what my decision would be. I would not let Sadie live with a declining quality of life. She hated needles more than anything in the world and I would have to inject her every day until she died. She was already delirious from having been put under for a routine teeth cleaning. The effects of the anesthesia had not worn off after two days.
    The night before, I had a dream. Sadie had snapped out of her catatonic state and was chasing my bird, Mr. Mumbly around the house. I noticed something shiny and golden hovering above Mumbly's head as he flew back and forth, teasing Sadie. It was a halo. Mumbly had died six months before. I had found him at the bottom of his cage, his little body stiff. I woke up thinking that Mumbly had come to me as an omen of Sadie's return to health.
    As I walked back in to the vet's office he looked at me and knew my decision before I had spoken it. I asked him to put Sadie to sleep. I was mad at myself for using the all-too-familiar euphemism. I had asked the vet to kill my dog, to inject her with something that would make her organs cease to function. I wanted him to end my dog's life. He began by injecting a small dosage of some kind of lidocaine agent. He asked me if Sadie took vaccines well. I couldn't help but smile as I said "She'll try to bite you." I held her head in my heads as the vet injected the lidocaine into her back thigh. She made a quick motion to bite at his hand, and the vet jumped back, but I held her tiny face in my hands and before long she had rested her head on the table.
    Next the vet took a larger syringe and injected it into her forearm. He left it sitting in her arm and said he would be back in two minutes. I assumed he was going to leave us alone while Sadie died in front of us. I stayed next to Sadie and her eyes were closed. I put my hand in front of her nose so she could smell that I was with her and so I could feel her breath grow weaker. But it didn't. Two minutes later, the vet came into the room and my father asked why her lungs were still moving. He frowned and said he must not have given her enough. He emptied the other half of the syringe into Sadie and brought out his stethoscope. A steady crease was on his forehead as he waited for her lungs to stop breathing. For five minutes they did not cease to inspire and expire. The vet took out another syringe. I looked at him and he told me "Her brain is dead, but her lungs don't want to stop." He injected another half of a syringe into her and a couple of minutes later (which felt like seconds) her lungs finally stopped moving. He looked at my father and I and said "I gave her the dosage I would have given a horse."
    As we walked out the door, the vet gave me a hug and said he was sorry. I thanked him, and went home to face Jonesy. After Sadie died, Jonesy lost his appetite and became very thin. That following Halloween he refused to get up from my mother's bed to greet the trick or treaters in his bat costume. He just growled softly at the constant ringing of our doorbell. Then for my twenty second birthday I got Teddy. Jonesy started wrestling with him after a few days and chasing him around the backyard. My boy was back.
    But the love Jonesy has for Teddy is not enough to make him live forever. At least, in heaven, of which I have no doubt that all dogs end up in, Jonesy will be reunited with his Sadie.
    The dream I had of an angel-Mumbly flying around the room with Sadie running after him was still an omen. I reinterpreted my dream as Mumbly having been Sadie's guardian angel coming down to Earth to collect her soul and take it back up with him. This is not the first time I see souls on their way to heaven. I said goodbye to my grandmother in a dream, and to my other dog Rosie, I said goodbye to my Uncle Bob while I was asleep.
    Maybe there are some people in this world whose hearts are open. And when people and animals die they are drawn toward the people with open hearts. While we sleep our defenses are down and the souls of the departed are able to send messages to their loved ones. The message is always the same: "We're happy. We're healthy. We're not in pain. We love you and we'll see you again."

It's a beautiful belief I've held onto for my entire life. And I'm not ready to let go of this belief. To those that would doubt me, tell me I'm a sentimental idiot or that I live in a fantasy world, I will say this: The world is what we make of it and I choose to believe in connections that cannot yet be proven. I experience these connections firsthand because I have not grown hard and cynical to the world around me, no matter how much I have been bruised and beaten by it. Because this world has also educated me, nurtured me, and loved me.