“Wake up,” she was saying.
I am slow to comply in the best of circumstances. This wasn’t one of those, sleep being my preferred venue.
Plus there was a strange dream. The location was France. It was the afternoon and I was running along the side of a country road doing my version of exercising. There was a warm breeze at my back and I had a nice middle-aged pace going when suddenly out of nowhere a man appeared, running toward me. He was younger and narrower and his skin hugged the muscles of his body with a scientific efficiency. But those was not his salient features.
All was eclipsed by what he did not have, which was shorts. Shoes, yes, and a headband too, which circled his head like a cotton halo, but no pants or underwear or concealing garment of any kind. His penis was right there for anyone to see. Dangling was the correct word for what it was doing. A flagrant breach of internationally agreed upon decorum.
In the dream I felt an offense bordering on envy, not for the size, which was comparable, but for the freedom. He was smiling like a criminal.
There’s more to this dream which we might get back to if there’s time.
So there I was coming out of it but in no real hurry and her shaking me like you would do to someone who had just fainted from bad news. But there was no bad news yet. That was coming.
Finally I felt a kick under the sheets. She was insisting. I remember distinctly the sensation of her toenails on that bone in my ankle. It wasn’t pleasant.
“I’m awake,” I said, doing my best to mask what I felt was a reasonable irritation.
“I heard something,” she whispered.
“What kind of something?”
“An eating sound. Or a scraping sound.”
“Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Why not?”
“Shh!” She lifted her head, cocking her ear in the direction of the kitchen.
“Do you hear it?” she asked.
Unfortunately I did, and said so.
I thought for a moment about the hero’s journey ala Joseph Campbell and how my little bedroom scene was mapping readily onto tropes familiar to me and so here we were at the call to action part of the story, which according to literary tradition should be initially refused. No hero wants to slay the dragon. But as in this case the maiden had already been won and was now in said hero’s bed, a certain forfeiture of protocol was likely necessary.
The sound was indeed coming from somewhere near the back of the house. It was the sound of the cat’s food being removed from its dish by the fastidious actions of a small mouth.
The food’s intended recipient was currently asleep at the foot of the family bed, oblivious as usual to everything but his own satisfaction.
There was a little twilight slipping under the pulled shade, lighting my way from bed to closet.
I noticed I was already wearing shorts — unlike that jogger — so all that was left to do was jam the feet into something sturdy enough for combat.
I felt the dog watching me. I looked over. He was.
“Do you want to be part of this?”
He lowered his head. No.
Clothed now or mostly, I looked over at the bed from across the room and since she wasn’t watching I removed the long barreled pellet gun from the closet. And now we are in act two.
The rest of the house was only mostly dark, dawn being what it is. I could see down the length of the hall through the kitchen to where the cat food lived and even in this uncertain light I was able to make out a shape foreign to the usual domestic presences.
Chomping away, rude as you like. Raccoon.
The question is how did this happen? The answer is you left the cat door open. The solution is, less clear.
I didn’t want to shoot the creature. Not in my own house. Not in anyone’s house.
So there was really only one thing to do.
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