politricks and other distractions

When Nightmares Come True

I'd post a picture of my dog's ripped up neck, but I don't want to wait to empty my camera of digital space for it. I'd rather just write this out.

I've had a spate in recent years of really bad things happening that were things I'd dreamt of beforehand. Should I chalk it up to some kind of psychic premonition or is it the opposite - imagining the worst and then creating that reality somehow?

I was walking Lucy on a beautiful Friday lunch hour. We approached the blanket of homeless people and their pit bull with caution. Lucy and I had walked past the car the dog was always trapped in (a crowded old Toyota Tercel) many times and the dog had barked crazily at us. This day, it was free. On a leash, but out of the car. I steered Lucy into the street to keep us far from the dog, now non-stop barking. As we narrowed into the sidewalk nearest the dog, Lucy was blissfully sniffing lampposts. I hurried her along (my fatal mistake?) and the dog pulled free and ran towards us.

That's when the nightmare kicked in. After two dog bites in Eugene the month we moved away, I'd had both the prior experience and the writer's imagination to foresee this moment. The pit bull running towards us barking. Me, trying to body block Lucy from the dog while holding her on the leash so she didn't run out into traffic.

Of course the pit bull got around me. Of course it went for her jugular. Minutes stretched like hours as the drunk homeless assholes lumbered over. I screamed like an Irish banshee for someone to come help, to unlatch the steel jaws from my dog's neck. As in previous nightmares, I screamed and no sound seemed to come out. Nobody ran to the rescue.

I ripped at the pit bull's jaws with all my strength to no avail. I pounded with both fists on the dog's head, just like I'd done in my dreams. I kicked it with all my might as I fell to the pavement. I flashed forward in my mind and imagined watching my dog bleed to death in my arms.

The pitbull finally let go and the homeless people yelled at me for yelling at their dog. I screamed my usual ineffectiveness at them: "You shouldn't have a dog like that!!"

Huh?

Then I ran down the street behind Lucy whispering, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

The day went on and the trauma still goes on, though Lucy's alive and sleeping on the sofa as I write this.

But I wonder what the lesson is I'm supposed to learn, to have had several actual nightmares of mine come true in recent years. From the murder of the man I loved to job nightmares to family, I've lived through the scenes I once feared. I suppose there's a strength to knowing you can get through them. That no matter how bad the scene, you're always alive and just dealing with it on the other side.

It's not so uplifting a lesson, I guess. Maybe that's the pity.

posted by dcnative @ 10:02 PM