- The Notorious B.I.G.
I’m dreaming about this dog. It’s one of those things where you’re watching something on television but you’re really there, and the narrator of the TV program is explaining about this dog. He said, it was originally named Spike but that later it was also called Charlie. I remember thinking “I like that name better” because of course that’s my brother’s name. Now, it’s raining out, and the dog is running around yelping in pain, saying “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I remember feeling very sad for this dog. All in all this was a very disturbing dream.
So then in the morning I was in the kitchen explaining the dream to my parents. My mom said the dog represents my brother. I said, obviously the dog represents my brother, I was even sort of aware of it during the dream. But what does it mean? What was wrong with the dog? Why did it keep saying “I’m sorry”? My dad said the dog was probably rabid, which is to say hydrophobic, so it was panicking because it was caught out in the rain. Also, he continued, the dog wasn’t really saying “I’m sorry,” it was just barking and it sounded like “I’m sorry” – like the dogs that are trained to bark “I love you” (or “rhi rhuff rhoo” or however you want to transcribe dog sounds). My dad is always good for rational answers to these things. Too bad my parents are really in Baltimore for the weekend, which I remember as I suddenly come awake in my (almost) pitch-black bedroom.
I know, I know, it was an awful trick to play on you, making you think I had woken up and I was really still dreaming. It was an awful trick to play on me, too. Now I am alone in my room and it is very dark, like when I was a child, and like when I was a child I am terrified. Specifically, terrified that there are things in the room with me. I keep sensing movements and hearing sounds but I am too scared to move. Petrified, you might say. I keep almost drifting to sleep but I am forcing myself to stay awake because there might be bad things in the room with me. The rational side of me is saying that I am drifting to sleep, that’s why I keep thinking there’s bad things in the room. All the more reason to force myself to stay awake.
Suddenly I open my eyes and I see my door is noticeably ajar, when it had been shut before. I can see a little light from down the end of the hall, enough light to realize that my door is now open when it wasn’t before. Now I am really terrified. I keep thinking to myself, why won’t the sun come up so the room isn’t so dark anymore? I have no idea how long this goes on but it seems like hours.
All of this ordeal ends when something grasps my right hand through the blanket and my hand starts tingling. Some voice with a distinct Elvis-type accent starts muttering things I do not understand or do not remember. My inner reason is telling me that there must not really be anything there, my hand is just asleep, which explains the tingling. But I can’t explain away the Elvis voice and I can’t move my body. Suddenly I realize that the reason I have not been moving all this time is not because I am too scared to move but because I can’t move, not even if I want to. Between this and the Elvis ghost I am finally so scared that I wake up.
Yes, again, I was really still dreaming. I know, I know, what a dirty trick. Imagine how I felt. The room is now blue with twilight and I sit up. It is 6:30 in the morning. I say, out loud, “If that was all my subconscious, fuck you; and if it was something else fucking with me, fuck you double. Fuck fuck fuck.” Then I got up and I stayed up. It took about an hour for me to be convinced that this time I really was awake and not still trapped in some nesting dolls recursive stack nightmare.
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