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.
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