First Posted: 3 April 1997
Yawning, I get up from the comfortable patch of clover I'd smashed down with a few quick turns, and stroll up to the top of the hill. Rabbit sees me, nose twitching.
"Morning Rabbit."
"Morning, Dog," he replies. "One of yours is coming. I smell him."
So do I. It is an old, familiar scent. "Uhm. Yeah. He's overdue," I explain. "Expected him a long time since."
"No time like the present," Rabbit chuckles. A small joke. Time here is...well, it just is. The Dreamtime that never goes away. Day or night. Don't mean nothing. Day can go to night and back to day again, but it doesn't have to be a new day. If you don't want it to be. Why not use one that's already happened? Saves on the wear and tear, I guess.
"Yeah. No time like the now," I smile, my tongue lolling out as I glance around. Now where is he. Ah. Over there. "Sorry, Rabbit. Can't stay and chat. I see him over there." I gesture towards the edge of a small grove of oaks. "Maybe I can chase you later, yeah?"
"Sure, Dog. Later," agrees Rabbit, hopping over to nibble delicately on the clover I'd tramped down earlier.
After another yawn and a stretch I head down the hill towards the trees. No sense rushing. He certainly didn't. He spies me as I approach. Walks to meet me.
"Hello, Man," I greet him. "Took your sweet time coming around to see me, didn't you?"
"Old Mutt," he mutters, shaking his head. "You're just a dream. This is all just a dream."
I let out a barking laugh, dropping down on my haunches to stare up at him in mirth. "Well of course it's a dream, you fool! But then, so's all of reality. This just happens to be a rather permanent, ongoing Dream that you've finally found your way back into. You've been here before. You'll be here again. Sometimes you come when you're awake, sometimes when asleep. Don't matter. Here is always here. Just like you're always where you are."
Getting up I wander behind him to his left side. He smells confused. Well.
"No matter where you go, there you are," I say, explaining it to him.
"Huh. Now why would a manifestation o' Power quote Bukaroo Bonzai? Further proof that you're just me subconscious."
"Yeah, well, whatever you say, Man," I agree, beginning to walk along the edge of the trees. The leaves turn from spring green to autumn gold in a matter of seconds, then settle happily into a winter fuscia for a couple minutes. He comes with me, walking on my left. Well heeled, he is. "Guess you'd know best. Me, I'm just Dog. The Dog. The Platonic ideal, if you will. So, sure, I'm in your subconscious, but that don't mean I'm not real. I am. So are you. Always have been. Always will be."
"Huh. Not me. I wasn't always, and sooner or later I'll be meetin' someone better than me, an' it'll be game o'er."
Yeah. Right. Engineer. Linear thinkers. Well, not always. But...
"Look, this is kind of hard to explain. If you were like that Maori shaman who did all that fancy tattooing on you, who first brought you over to Me, this would be easier. He's still around someplace. Part of him at least. Somewhere. I could find him, or at least the parts of him that want to be found, but really I'm not in the mood for it right now. Suffice it to say, part of you has always been, just as some of you always will. A morphic resonance, if you will."
"Rupert Sheldrake," he acknowledges. "He around here, too."
"Yeah, sure. He's Snake's, though. Probably basking on some hot rock or other. Tell you the truth, Man, he doesn't grasp all this," I gesture across the meadow, fields, and woods with a paw, "much better than you. He's gotten a glimps. Just like you. But he's Snake's, so he deals with it different like."
"Gotta stop eatin' pizza before bed."
Huhg. This is going nowhere fast. Stopping I look up at him again.
"Look, rationalize it all you want, but the fact is, you do know all this is real. As real as anything, that is. Which makes it fully real. If you follow me. And you know you are mine. Maybe not in the bright light of your days, but in the dark, in the night, when you wake for no reason, when you call out with an empty mind for all that's gone to dust, you Know. I am. And you are mine. You always will be. You always have been. Even before you Knew. Then you were too. You walk my Path. You can't deny this any more than you could live without your head. You've said the words often enough. Admitted it often enough. You just don't like being confronted with it, is all."
He sighs. Long and sad. "Yeah. Yeah. I know." Squatting down next to me he rests a hand on the back of my neck, behind the ears. "It's too real," he adds, looking into my eyes. His old eyes to my ageless ones, timeless. Behind him the trees of the forest get up, one by one, on their roots and walk away.
"Yeah. I know. Life's a bitch. Then you die. But until then, you follow my Path. Albeit, not very clearly sometimes. You're not like that shaman. You don't see the Dreaming clearly. But sometimes you come to me. Sometimes I come to you. And over the years, you've learned what it is to be Dog. Come on. Let's run. You need the practice."
"For what?" he grunts as he begins loping along side me. The grass squirms out of our way, not wanting to be tromped on. Across the way, on the horizon, some god or other eats a volcano and belches thunder and shits fire.
I snort. "You'll know soon enough. In fact, you already know. You've been a lot of Dog over the years. A Dog of War, for a lot of it. Which is not to say you're one of Wolf's. Wolf fights 'cause he's gotta. It's in Wolf's blood." As I'm talking, a shadow, that of Wolf, veres off from where ever he was going and runs parallel to us. "You fight for a different reason. You fight 'cause you're Dog, the Protector." Wolf's shadow loses interest and heads off after Stag, cresting the top of a hill on the hunt. "Dog is the Protector and Guardian. He walks at the left hand of Man and sleeps by the coals of the fire, keeping watch. Don't forget that."
We run silently for a short while longer. Then stop at the top of a high cliff, overlooking a great sea, a hundred thousand feet below us.
Looking out over the crystal blue sky and the turquoise of the water. Clouds below and above. The gentle sound of the powerful waves turning the cliff face to sand. A mountain floats through the sky, trailing a black and gold Rainbow.
"Protector and Guardian, huh?" he murmers, but to himself. "Yeah, well, you're right ol' Hound. Life is truly one right bitch. So. Damn. An' I was gettin' comfortable. Wha' wi' Tracey an' all. Think Annie'd like her."
"Yeah," I agree, sadly, remembering his Annie. "I think she'd would at that. I'm sorry 'bout that Man," I add. "For what it's worth."
"Not your fault, Dog. My fault." He stares off at the flying sharks for a few eons. "Hell. Like you said. It just is, is all." Then, "Pretty place you got here."
"Hmm. Yeah. Not bad. But you're stalling. You didn't come to see me just to watch the view. You know what you've got to do."
He closes his eyes and with a long sigh gets smaller. Shrunken in. Then he draws in breath and grows again. Larger than before. Opens his eyes, stares out at the floating mountain, the eternal sea, the flying sharks.
"Aye. I know wha' I 'ave to do. Known since Dan told me. Just took awhile, is all, for me to admit it. Got too comfortable. Let meself forget."
So. Good. He does know. I heave a small sigh of relief of my own.
"Well, think of it as a vacation of sorts," I tell him. "But it's time to get back to work, neh?"
"Right. Well, see you, you old Mutt," he says, reaching down to scratch my ears. Ah, yes, right there. "If I hurry, I can just catch that mountain for a connecting flight."
The cliff face extends itself a bit as he runs forward, giving him a chance to build momentum before he hurls himself over the edge towards the mountain. A shark turns towards him as he lands on the fiord at the mountain's base, but loses interest and flies off in search of easier prey.
Hugh. Well. He may turn out all right after all. Hmm...Think it's about time for a mid-morning nap. Turning around three times I settle down and watch the mountain drift away, trailing the black and gold Rainbow behind.