Manantial El Tanquecito

Sex dreams are class. I don't know what the hierarchy of dreams is, but somewhere toward the top has to be the hot and heavy ones with nightmares somewhere well below. Everything in between is negotiable and subjective. Regardless of ranking, what they all share is a propensity of the ephemeral. No matter how ghoulish and heart rending the nightmare, it is washed away in the light of morning. Shut your eyes as hard as you like, there is no getting back into that bed with that hottie. It’s a safeguard of sorts, I reckon, this smoke-like quality. To give it any sort of solid form risks conflation with a reality that, as of late, already boggles the mind. Besides, chasing illusions only leads to illusions. (So you’re saying I shouldn’t go after my dreams? Shut up, you know damn well what I’m saying).

It’s just as well. Never mind the fruitlessness of the endeavor or the ghastly mental state we’d all be in were nightmares to be given even a tiny bit of flesh— these are not the most dangerous outcome. The greatest threat to this psychological theory I’ve just made up are the most beautiful dreams you can think of. Beauty in this context has nothing to do with aesthetic or pleasure. Beauty is the heart’s desire, things often hidden from ourselves, save for dreams. They are the visions so wonderful and bliss inducing that we wake from them feeling hollow. Something was there, it made us feel complete and gave us a glimpse into purpose: we felt for a moment what it means to be alive, fully. The dream that confirms that in a choice between getting busy with the hottest of hots and abandoning any grip on reality we would never choose the former.

I’d never had that dream. Likely it has something to do with me struggling enough with that pesky sense of purpose when awake, no need to taint the only considerable form of escape available to me. I’ve come close, sure. The odd dream where I’ve gone back in time to do it all over again, this time right; reconciliation with some lost love in an ideal setting; the cliche lottery dream. Still, for the days’ worth of longing these dreams left me with, I didn’t miss them once they were gone.

This past March was a year since we had to sleep my poor doggo. I do my best not to think about it, which is of course why that’s the only thing I do. I overheard my mom one day comment how I didn’t seem to care because I hadn’t said anything. She was incredibly wrong while being mildly right. I don’t say anything. Never mind why I don’t, that's a different story altogether, but I don’t. What exactly is there for me to say? The guilt and chronic pain of memory isn’t something that can be shared or allayed. I told the people I felt were the most important to tell in the moment. Otherwise, if there were fissures shown already, seams I would’ve eagerly worked to stitch and maintain in the past, I simply let them follow the natural course. I don’t have the emotional breadth for it. Clean splits, watching pieces of a once familiar cloth drift off into the sea of anonymity. But this shouldn’t be about my as of yet unresolved bitterness.

I knew this is what it would be like, the constant remembering and regret and guilt and insert every other downtrodden emotion can fit. When I would stare at him in his last new bed with the raised edges because it was tough for him to keep his head up, I couldn’t talk to him. I just wanted to take him in. I hoped he did the same. Of course, the raised edges also made it tough for him to get into the bed. I knew then that there would be nothing to make it better. I’d cry and for the first time in my life get drunk to numb, but that would be temporary. A sort of necessary theater. It would do nothing to about the every day; they aren’t a switch that would keep me from thinking about him every day. I knew it would be every day.

And I’m okay with that. Probably another reason I don’t talk about it. I’ve been moaning on in such a fashion that anyone would be justified in thinking I’m walking around in cloud of my own self-loathing. There are positives, though. I enjoy thinking about him, in my own way. Despite my poor abilities as an owner, we shared wonderful times together, and those memories persist. What pangs I feel every day are mostly rooted in the recent, objective event, and do not outweigh the beautiful sight of his dumb smile or the childish fits he would throw. It’s these I use to help me get through the pressures in the diaphragm.

If I’ve waited this long to say anything in a public forum, it’s because, well, we all need time to think these things through. It takes time to process the emotions. Even once those have been separated and placed in some form of order, there’s still the process of letting it out of the head. I’d like to think that’s about where I am. I don’t know that I'm ready to pore over his pictures or have active conversations about him. Truth be told, I don’t think I ever will be ready for those things, though not out of avoidance or denial: I’ve just never been overly expressive about those things. I enjoy having those sort of intense emotions to myself. Memories such as these are especially precious and dear to me, despite the cost accompanying them. More than anything, I’m at peace with saying that it never stops hurting. It’s important to be able to admit that to someone other than myself.

What prompted what I suppose one could refer to as a confession, was a dream. At a park, with the family, we were all walking through what felt like enclosures without roofs. Sections of featured foliage and plants. He looked leathery, tired, but his body still pressed on, chasing a black and white soccer ball. God knows where he got it because we stopped getting him any sort of soft toy since all he did was chew them up to hell. We were leaving back the way we came which led into another section onto a bridge over a square rising where water collected and flowed. There hadn’t been any rain, so it was still. Yoshi was chasing the ball on a wide stone railing. I was walking after him, amazed he still had the energy. The ball bounced off the railing into the water below, which he eagerly jumped into. I figured he’d pop up with it, and for a moment his head rose above water before sinking below the emerald. I saw his body sink down. It wasn’t very deep, maybe four feet at the most, but he couldn’t manage the paddle. It was too much for his body. The still water was transparent, and I saw him lay at the bottom. For a moment I considered leaving him: what was there to save? I immediately cursed myself to hell and jumped in. I reached under him softly, mindful of his frail frame, and lifted him out. He was so light. Well, light for what his little cow-tank body used to be. I placed him down for a moment, just to get my bearings and to catch a quick breath. There was some guy lounging on the embankment who Yosh started licking, as if he’d been the one who saved him. He was dressed in a smart white button down with styled black slacks and sharp leather loafers. It seemed he was taking a quick little lay on a pile of top soil bags before going back to work. He was wearing aviator sunglasses. I apologized for disturbing him. He chuckled and said there was nothing to worry about. For some reason I said Yoshi had just gotten married. He laughed and chastised the groom for leaving the bride. I put my hands back under the cow-tank body, but before I could turn to leave, I woke up.