July 29, 2002

• strange dreams...
  
  black dog. silver tips on his coat, silver splotches around his muzzle. he's old. he approaches me and i know the dog
  
  "here boy" i call him.
  
  he trots over and gets himself up on two legs, his paws against my shoulders and his face against my chest.
  
  "good boy....gooood boy" scratching behind his ears.
  
  whats wrong with his eyes? i look closer, his pupils are contracted into pinpoints. the hallway isn't bright enough to warrant that. hallway? i'm at my work, in a long stretch of sterile hallway. as i'm watching, old man (for some reason i refer to the dog as 'old man') begins foaming at the mouth.
  
  oh hell. he's rabid!?
  
  "down boy...come on....down"
  
  he's not moving, my shirt gripped in his mouth, head tilted, left eye rolled up to look at me.
  
  "come, get down"
  
  i put my hands on his paws, slowly and life them off me, so slowly. if he's rabid i want nothing to excite him, give him an excuse to start snapping, biting, savage jaws.
  
  "down" i say, more firmly. pushing his paws down, they tangle in the hem of my shirt. he's stuck there, my shirt wrapped on his paws, my shirt in his jaws. one eye rolled up to stare. black dog. old man.
  
  i consider, briefly, grabbing him around the muzzle and pushing him down. i know this will enrage him though. pushing down a little more insistently on him.
  
  "get down boy, down."
  
  my vision becomes obscured, somehow my shirt has been pulled over my face, i can see only through the neck hole. panic hits me like a body check.
  
  no. you panic and it's all over.
  
  old man is still staring, his eye framed in the neck hole of my shirt. staring, foaming. i can hear it dripping onto the floor in gobs.
  
  suddenly he's on the floor again, my shirt is back on and he's looking at me. something is so desperate and pleading about him, looking at me. all i can think is about whether or not he's rabid though. slowly i back away and open the first door i come to, backing through the doorway and closing the door. old man knows i'm on the other side and begins huffing at the cracks, pushing against the door. there's a vent i can see him through, pushing his muzzle against the cracks in the doorway.
  
  the bottom of the door begins to bend like rubber, he's pushing under the door. i pin the bottom edge against the floor with my foot to keep him out. i can feel frustration adding to his desperate pleading.
  
  what is he saying?
  
  his frustration is at a peak, yet he's still not mindlessly attacking the door. very unlike a rabid animal.
  
  there's someone in the hallway, i can sense it?see it? he's wearing a business suit, no jacket. he has a latex halloween pull over mask on, the face is left open. a bald head and huge ears, grey purplish color.
  
  there's a woman next to him, leaning out of a door.
  
  he takes off at a sprint, the ridiculous mask jiggling.
  
  the hallway has turned into a street.
  
  "DON'T RUN!" the woman screams "HE'LL ATTACK YOU!"
  
  he gets past old man, who takes off after him.
  
  they get to the intersection, cars speeding through it. old man catches up to halloween mask. the woman is screaming.
  
  old man is aside halloween mask, pacing him. he rears onto his hind legs and places his forepaws on halloween masks left shoulder and back. halloween mask is hunched over, arms protecting his head and the back of his neck. old man is just running beside him, his paws on him.
  
  he gives up, dropping down to fours as halloween mask keeps running.
  
  old man returns to his post in front of my door in resignation. he lays down, giving me a quick backward glance and places his head onto his paws.
  
  i hear a man screaming now, from the intersection (my left):
  "oh god no"
  
  his voice is a screech of panic.
  
  his leashed dog is either mauling or being mauled. there are two? dogs unleashed. i can't make out whats happening, but i know the three dogs are involved, savage snapping sounds, growls and snarls. the man has found his panic mantra:
  
  "no no no oh god no no"
  
  over and over.
  
  he's pulling the leash, great hurculean yanks, with his entire body. screaming his chant.
  
  the leash rips and he is sent careening out of my site.
  
  i notice there are two chimpanzees and a brown bear watching.

  • 10:52 am
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