Meeting Death

Meeting Death

I met Death for the first time in a dream. Not that I haven’t seen his handy work in my short lifetime before; but I mean I actually conversed with the entity that we call Death. In this dream my wife was showing me around one of the colleges that she attended prior to her military service, “Rolla science and technology”.

    Like most dreams, I was going with the flow of my subconscious and sorta kinda in control of what was going on.  I remember vague details like Rolla had an abundance of Arabic guys running around in soccer attire, being their usual creepy selves, saying homoerotic things to me and doing whatever it is hairy guys in soccer attire do.  I recall her taking me to the admissions office and there was a group of about 4 or 5 black dudes in there and they started to get shitty with me and my wife; so I of course got in an “altercation” with them. I recall me going Jason Statham on them until one of these gentlemen said, “Bro, it’s just a misunderstanding!!” My dream self understood this as a sign of surrendering, and said black dude and myself hugged it out and my wife and I continued our tour of the campus.

   We continued our trek around Rolla S&T until we reached the cafeteria where my wife ran ahead of me into it.  I followed after only to discover a place that was more of an office than a lunchroom. It was almost like someone took the designs of a cheap mobile home and put it into the form of an office; it had the vibe of the place you would find someone overdosed on heroin in.                                                                                                            

   I started yelling “HEATHER?! HEATHER WHERE ARE YOU?!” ( I have a thing about not being able to find someone) I searched for her for what seemed like forever in this hallway made of cheap doors until a spotted black and white dog came running up to me. I know a majority of the populace can relate to the feeling of comfort and borderline annoyance that a person feels when a dog unconditionally loves and shows their usual overly familiar affection to you, but this dog was different. It wasn’t one of my old dogs, and god knows I’ve had more pets than the usual kid (at least 9).  It was black and white spotted, short haired with a medium snout and built like an English pointer, something my friend Jon Griffith would call “cow      pattern”.                                                                                                       

   I remember it, and I say “it” since I don’t know its sex, running around franticly, jumping on me and whining like something was wrong and “it” needed to tell me something. And then I saw him, Death. He was staring at a closed, cheaply built plywood door mumbling to himself about whatever it is an entity thinks about. I think that once I saw Death and realized my wife wasn’t there and that wherever she was must certainly be a better place than face-to-face with Death, and that maybe I should worry about the fact that Death, myself and my new friend “Spot” the dog are now going to have a talk.                                      

  I realize that even subconsciously just saying “she’ll be ok” about your wife probably sounds as bad as you’d think it’d sound, but if you knew what a badass Heather was and the fact that she could snap a person’s neck with little effort then deep down you know she’ll be fine and MAYBE you should wonder why you’re looking Death in his eyeless sockets.

Me: “what do you want??”

Death: “you can’t save him”

And hearing this Spot freaked the fuck out and started doing what dogs do when they’re scared.  He ran up and down the hallway at full speed yelping and jumping on me trying to get my attention.

Me: “That’s fucking bullshit!! This dog didn’t do anything to anyone, it’s innocent! I don’t give a FUCK what I have to do! It isn’t its time!”

Death just looked at me, head slightly cocked like a dog that doesn’t know what you’re saying; a confused look is what I imagine he gave me since he didn’t have a flesh on his face to express his emotions and the door Spot and I were next to opened up. Next thing I know Spot and I are falling cloud high into a large body of water.  We splash into the water unscathed and I see Spot floating, then sinking into the water. My heart pulls at me to immediately dive down after him and pull him up into the air. The last memory I have of this dream is of me franticly pulling Spot up from the darkness of the ocean and him barley clinging to life as we drift ashore onto some body of land.

            This can be interpreted many ways, the best I can make of it is that the reason Death looked at me like I was a retard is the fact that spot was trying to save ME. Dogs are known as man’s best friend for a reason; Spot was never in any real danger and maybe “it” knew that I was. Perhaps the dog was telling Death in his own way that it wasn’t my time either. Perhaps Death didn’t want to deal with either of us and just said “FUCK IT! GET THE FUCK ON THEN! GOOD LUCK AND GET THE FUCK OUT! I have better things to do like dealing with Somalia than listen to some asshole and a random dog about saving each other. And how the fuck did you guys even get in here?! You know what, never mind, just GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Despite the fact that we must all meet him one day, I can’t imagine Death being a very social person.