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The Dog
I saw my apartment; I was a camera above the light fixture over the two-seater table, I was a camera level with the two-seater table, I was a camera, floating over the loft railing to the living area below”¦ except it wasn”™t my apartment. In my dreams my apartment is always better, although in life this is not important to me.
For being new and modern on the inside, this apartment of mine had aspects that spoke the contrary. An old mudroom led to a country-esque backyard space revealing that the exterior of the building was a muted blue and as old as a picturesque country barn.
Around the back of this structure, where I exited through the mudroom to the yard, which can only be described as rural, was a narrow back area lined on both sides with chain link fences. To the right existed two gates leading to adjoining properties. An unseen but heard dog behind gate number two was barking at a couple of rather large, aggressive squirrels, which opened the door to the apartment mudroom next to mine, to the right””on my right, and entered casually. The owner was used to this sort of thing, and skirted them out. I however found this behavior in squirrels far more unusual and unwanted.
I continued past the pale English grasses curving to my left around the side of my building where there ran a deep, milk chocolate-like mud that filled the side yard between wall and fence. Jeans already rolled up to my knees, I was innately prepared and waded in on impulse, the building now fully on my left, but this mud””it grew deeper than I had judged. Past my knees, really. I”™m sorry to report that my jeans were muddied and I did not mind.
Nearby my landlady, a younger version of herself from the '70s that I have never known, sat a foot above the slow mudflow on a narrow side patio with deep steps. Sitting profile on the lowest un-muddied step, legs bent in front of her, back leant against the wall, she was talking on her cordless. She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing to me as I passed; one slow, exaggerated, wading step at time. Then another. Pressing onward. The present moved at a regular pace; it”™s simply that given the consistency of the space I was maneuvering, I could not.
Then as I turned to wade back toward my mudroom origin, then came the Rottweiler. He joined me and, recognizing him, I veered us right, going closer toward the building where the mud was not quite so deep, next to the foundation, my dog-friend on my left.
I put my hand under his collar because there were leash laws in those parts and I thought this would suffice. Of course he isn”™t the sort of dog that requires a leash but one must keep up appearances. He didn”™t like this, that was clear, but he didn”™t stop me as he could have easily done. A steady hand on his great neck also helped me to get through, him having a less difficult time of it because of his weight or paws or gentle step or some other dream science
So we walked toward the back in what was to be the final shot of this sequence; mud slicking the foreground, a thick molasses-like mud, the mottled blue walls of the building to our right, paint peeling from the wood underneath, a chain link fence to our left and ahead our vision filled with evening grasses and, down slope, a willow tree.
We walked in silence. Why did I live there? I cannot tell. But the dog””no matter the dream, no matter the form””he is always my friend.
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