This wasn't a dog-fight, these snakes weren't a stick or a ball and this particular terrier I knew wasn't a listen-to-command-and-do-as-I-say type. Terriers generally aren't at the best of times and definitely not when in possession of a stick, rope or ball, or even a car tyre, nor when in pursuit of a pigeon or squirrel. They race down the garden or stand guard under a tree, hell-bent on their course of action, despite their owner's protests, to see off danger or just for the hell of it, really. Terriers are stubborn creatures, especially if they're of the Bull variety and nevermore so when it comes to what direction to take on a walk or even to go on a walk at all. Like a toddler in a temper (without the howling) they turn rigid and refuse to budge, unless you mollify them some way or do exactly what they want, and then they trundle along quite happily and strut like Travolta.
Smug. I'm a Kool Kat, though I don't associate with those spelled C-A-T.
Yes, terriers are a comedic breed.
So, in the dream this knowledge I had of terriers and of this particular bullish one was a help, but not a help if you know what I mean. I danced on the sidelines feeling powerless, though nothing untoward (that I remember) occurred: the terrier continued to vigorously shake the snakes in this mouth and the snakes continued to wave in a distinctly gloating manner with their dark gem-shaped eyes fixed upon me.
There was no conclusive end as you might expect from a fairy tale of either romantic or hideous proportions, just a fading or a waking, I'm not entirely sure which. Though I like to think the snakes turned into silk scarves like those tied end to end and pulled from a magician's hat or the sleeve of some willing volunteer, and hung there limp and bedraggled. Or they turned into a string of sausages, which from a terrier's point of view had it been their dream would have been more creditable, especially if they were stolen say from a table or a window ledge as then the game would have been far more delicious and worthwhile.
But those are waking fabricated endings. The dream I'm sure wouldn't have taken that direction, and if dreamt again would be different to that described.
Where do dreams go once they've been half or fully-realised? I never experience repeats; I never return, nor it seems dream of similar scenarios and on themes I recognise. Though it could be in sleep I'm denser than usual, which would mean I contravene the experts' opinion: my brain is not susceptible at night. But then I too share the terrier trait of inbred stubbornness, so if I proved insusceptible I wouldn't be surprised. It would be a straightforward case of mind over matter.
Perhaps, dreams, realised or unrealised, go to an island somewhere. A dead isle. Where they are merged with others to form a brand new undreamed vision that will wait for the right person to be born or to be in the right place to dream it. Perhaps they're all just catalogued in a dream-paedia: date dreamt, who dreamt by and their location, and the different versions that then followed: what they were later spliced with. It would be a vast task for whomever had to manage it, so there'd be minions: clerks, transcribers, supervisors and incinerator workers and the like, unless it too has moved into the digital age, to be run by electricity and technology. Surely not, surely if such a dead dream isle exists its operation would be mostly telepathic rather than use even our new modern means to manufacture night dreams that seem random to us like a CD player picking the order of play but in actuality aren't at all. A fascinating concept don't you think? with shades of Philip K. Dick or Margaret Atwood.
Picture credit: The Isle of the Dead, 1880, Arnold Bocklin
