The Anniversary

Yesterday marked the anniversary of my divorce. It’s been eight years since the divorce. In five days, it will be the six year anniversary of the publication of Cake.

I would like to share with the world, a subconscious battle that I’ve been having.

November 7, 2021

My day began like every Sunday. I cleaned my apartment, got groceries, fed the rabbit, played video games until late afternoon when I thought that I might like celebrating.

I went with the usual: Dinner and Drinks.

The food at the Smoke Shack was great. Duck poutine, a brisket sandwich, and topped off with Woodford Reserve double oaked to remind me of that one Halloween in 2014. I got the bread pudding to go.

The Outsider is a bar that is located on the roof of a hotel. It was recommended as a beautiful scene with a great view and was said to be hard to get into. Yesterday it was empty. The view of Milwaukee from that bar made me feel much like a chance of a voyeur. You can see into just about every apartment from that bar. It reinforced a nagging reminder to close my blinds.

When I got home, I pulled out my divorce paperwork and smiled softly. Never again. I drank a bit of Chardonnay as I played a game until bed time at which point I went to bed.

Then I fell asleep.

Perchance to Dream

I’m laying on my right side, snuggled underneath my covers. Suddenly, I hear what sounds like a dog scratching. “It must be Ke,” I think.

I do not own a dog.

I feel something jump on the edge of my bed accompanied by a familiar vibration of a dog scratching rigorously at the end of the bed. The bed jiggles and my body moves with it.

I’m startled. I attempt to get up but, alas, I cannot. My body will not respond to what I think are my conscious demands.

Then, I feel the other side of the bed dip; much like when a person crawls into it.

I struggle to open my eyes, turn my head, do anything – but I am unable. This entity snuggles up next to me. I feel a hand graze over my left hand and our fingers intertwine.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I think.

There should be no one else in my bed.

The Escape

I try to elbow the entity that’s behind me, but it has hold of my hand and prevents me from doing so. I whimper and try again.

It reaches my hand out towards my side of the bed. I have no control of my arm and it pains me when I move against the flow it’s moving me in. As it moves my hand, I feel kissing on my shoulder.

I’m scared at this point and very freaked out. I’m not winning with the elbow, so I play along. As I reach my right hand up over head as though I’m going to kiss the entity back, I wake up.

I’m the only person in the room.

My body pillow is positioned behind me, right where I left it. I roll over to my left side, holding the pillow tight and try to fall back asleep, relieved to be alone.

I start thinking about how often these events occur and consider writing a blog post about it. As the post pores over my brain and I am staring at the ceiling, I hear, what I believe to be the familiar sound of the ice machine – followed by the sound of broken glass.

“What the fuck is that?!?” I scream. I run out of my room and look around. No broken glass to be found or seen. I open the fridge and the freezer. All is well. Then it dawns on me. I put on my bathrobe, open the door and there it is; the picture that was hanging on my door fell off and the frame broke.

Lovely. It’s 4:40 in the morning.

Happy Anniversary

I swept up the glass, put clothes on, and trotted down to the lobby to grab a cup of coffee. When I returned to my apartment, I let the rabbit out of the cage and started typing up this blog.

I wish I could say that the events with this phantom dog person crawling into my bed was the first time that I experienced it, but it’s recurring.

I’d love to blame it on the apartment, but truth be told, I’ve had these types of dreams in the past. Once upon a time, it was a cat jumping into my 5′ high bunk bed that I found myself struggling to kick out. Further back into the past, it was sounds of someone keying into my house. There was a person right next to me back then. He didn’t hear a thing and I was screaming.

The anniversary went well this year. It’s just the morning after that did me in with my subconscious misbehaving.

Why does it have to include a dog? Like, literally, I have days where I think that I’m waking up in the middle of the night screaming at a dog to get off of my bed. I don’t want a dog, brain. That’s why there’s no dog here.

Now I have a video stuck in my head.