CHAPTER TEN

The Building of Life

In my dream I stand outside a gigantic domed structure. At first, it appears to be made of steel, brick, and stone. It looks solid and finite from the outside. Upon a second look, though, I see that the structure does not follow physical rules. It changes, shifts, and grows organically with no visible limits.

I watch a never-ending line of thousands of people of all ages and races move swiftly into the building. I know some of the people very well, although their names are not coming to my mind. Others, I may have seen sometime in the course of my life. But most of the people in line are strangers.

I hear a few people saying, “This is the Building of Life.” Although no one tells me what is in this building, I seem to know its contents. I am aware that it contains countless rooms filled with everything imaginable. There are vast collections of art and all the books of the world. It has within itself various kinds of architecture as well as forests, lakes, and oceans. All life experiences are also represented in the massive structure. Everyone who is in line, that is, everyone with a ticket, may move from room to room after entering the building.

All of these people have tickets. My hands are empty. I do not have a ticket.

I look around to find that the ticket counters are closed. I panic. This must be a terrible mistake. I see Linda, the love of my life, standing in line with our dear friends. They are moving very quickly into the building. They are leaving me behind. Nobody turns back to acknowledge that I even exist.

Why don’t I have a ticket? What have I done wrong? I am supposed to be with them. Why have I been abandoned? I try to catch up with Linda, but she is so far ahead. How will I ever be with her again?

I push my way into the line, hoping that no one will see that I do not have a ticket. Everyone notices and they glare at me with hostility. “ You do not belong here,” some say. Others sneer at me, “ You are not one of us.” I am devastated. I do not know what has happened or why.

Linda is gone. I am alone and forgotten. It is as if I never existed.

A PAT ON MY SHOULDER WOKE ME UP. LEAF HAD JUMPED UP ON MY SIDE of the bed. With shaking hands, I reached for his soft body and wrapped my arms around the little dog. I glanced over on the other side of the bed. Linda was there, still asleep.

“It was a dream. A nightmare,” I whispered to Leaf and hugged him tightly into my chest. I was surprised that he let me. His soothing touch helped my racing heartbeat to slow down.

The disheveled sheets indicated that I must have been thrashing about, frantically searching for the elusive ticket counter. I listened to the steady intake and exhale of Linda’s breath, but her serene face in the morning light did not comfort me. She, with everyone else I had ever known, had left me behind. Leaf lay still and drifted off to sleep on my chest. I chided myself for not being able to shake off the anger, desperation, and confusion I’d felt in the nightmare.

Later that morning I sat in the living room with Linda. We drank our coffee and glanced out the picture window at children boarding the school bus across the street. I told her about the vivid dream. With his front and back legs fully extended, Leaf lay flat on the gray carpet in front of me and listened intently.

At first I wondered if I should talk to Linda about the nightmare. I did not want to burden my wife with what to me seemed like a premonition of catastrophic loss. But did she need to be prepared? What if the dream presented something that I knew inside of me but hadn’t been able to face?

Linda listened quietly while I described the dream. She asked, “Did you try to go back into the dream and finish it?” I told her that I woke up with a start. Leaf had been there to comfort me. Her face turned pale.

For a few moments we sat silently. The sounds of children’s laughter on the sidewalk had ended with the arrival of the school bus. Linda got up and put her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder.

“It’s only a possibility.” I cringed at the tremor in her voice. We both knew from our spiritual studies that dreams have meaning. They often warn the dreamer of things to come. “Maybe it’s what could happen in some alternate universe. But not here. Not to us,” she assured me. I squeezed her shoulder, unable to speak. “And besides, I’m not letting go of you.”

I yearned to believe her soothing words. Like Jaws going after Leaf in the dog park, the dream wouldn’t let go. Besides, I could tell Linda wasn’t as certain as she tried to appear. Her assurances had sounded more like questions.

More than anything, I wanted to believe that the dream was unimportant, a perfectly understandable but inconsequential expression of anxiety. Yet I couldn’t shake off the sensation that I’d foreseen the outcome of the brain aneurysm and surgery. It wasn’t the happy ending I needed.

Leaf stood up and came over to us. He stared at me with his penetrating coal eyes. Then he jumped onto the couch and sat by my other side. He lowered his body next to mine and put his head on my knee. I stroked the smooth fur on his forehead. The pall of the dream draped over me like a shroud.

During the next few days, Leaf started acting oddly. He’d paw the living room coffee table until any newspaper, envelope, or magazine on top of it fell to the floor. With great focus and attention, he shredded them into tiny scraps. Each time I discovered scattered papers on the floor, I’d ask, “Leaf, what are you doing?” His behavior puzzled me. He’d never been like Taylor, who gnawed on anything that looked chewable. Why had he suddenly started ripping up papers?

As if trying to answer my question, Leaf would pick up one of the smaller shreds in his mouth and bring it to me. As soon as he delivered one piece, he’d grab another shred with his mouth and give it to me. With great determination, he persisted by tearing larger pieces of newspapers and magazines and gripping them in his jaws. He’d repeatedly shake his head and rip them into fragments. Then he’d bring the scraps to me. “Stop!” I’d finally yell at him.

I’d either scoop the papers off the floor or leave the living room so I could have some quiet and drink my coffee elsewhere. With all I had on my mind, I was not in the mood to deal with my dog’s new way of acting out. I had no idea why he was making such a mess. Having to pick up after him annoyed me. Why couldn’t he just behave and leave me alone?

Eventually, I was so frustrated that I gathered up magazines or newspapers from the living room coffee table and brought them to the adjacent dining room. I stacked the papers in the middle of the table where Leaf couldn’t reach them. It wasn’t exactly the best spot, since we had to move them aside in order to eat our meals. But at least the coveted items were no longer targets of Leaf’s strange obsession. Moving the papers out of his reach finally forced him to stop the weirdness.

The more I thought about the nightmare and my exclusion from the “Building of Life,” the more Leaf followed me around the house. He slept underneath my computer. He climbed onto my old lounge chair and watched me when I dressed for work. Perhaps I was imagining it, but it looked to me as if my gloom and anxiety weighed heavily on his young shoulders. He’d been through so much loss in his young life. I began to feel guilty over the possibility that I could be causing him more distress.

I wasn’t able to reassure him that everything would be all right. The dream had shaken me to my core. Would my dog, still emotionally fragile, have his world rocked once again? What if, as my dream had predicted, I had been denied a ticket to the Building of Life? What would happen to Linda and me? What would happen to Leaf?