Dream Sequence

It's only been my second night without downers, but I've spent the last two nights in the throes of a dream which I wish I could say was recurrent, but has been actually rather like a television serial. Perhaps I've been exalting the format of the television novel a little too much, but my dreaming has taken on the likeness of an art-house version of 24. Night 1. Interior. Night. I hang out with some new friends, popping a few pills and smoking up. At the end of it all, I feel a flirtatious camaraderie with one of the boys, R. As the sun comes up, they all stumble out of my house, sobering up in the cold dawn. I'm suddenly conscious of the maid standing shivering in the doorway; she informs me that my terrier, who was pregnant with four puppies, is dead. R had come upon her and for no apparent reason kicked her across the lawn. She had spent last few hours haemorrhaging to death at the vet's. I wake up and attend my Sociology of Ethnicity class.

Second night. I have a presentation to prepare, so I took out my notes, my handouts, and my readings, and soon fall asleep with pencil in hand. Interior. Night. I have found my father's .38 in a desk drawer, and am trying to remember how to use it, and the few shooting lessons we had had together before I grew up and into libertarian politics. My dog's corpse is brought home in a cardboard box, and I thank the maid who had fetched it for me. As soon as the door closed, I found the reason why I had been unable to work the gun. I unlatched the safety, braced my arm, and fired. The recoil was more manageable than it had been for a nine year old, and I managed to leave a nick in the door three feet left of the peephole I had been aiming at. Armed, literally, with this new confidence, I mustered the courage to open the box, and stroked the stone cold body. The next shot went into the wall somewhere. I wiped away the tears and kept firing until the gun was empty.

At this point I had to wake up to go to the bathroom. I knew that if I went back to sleep I would soon head out to see if I could actually find R and pull the trigger. Did I want to find that out? It wasn't even six in the morning yet, but I decided instead to check my email and see if any friends across the globe were awake and logged onto their instant messaging service. Tonight I'm cranky and antisocial, and have decided I'm going to pop a Valium. I also called my maid and was reassured by the sound of barking in the background. I told her to take her to the vet's; she's overdue for her shots anyway.