Words’ End

An hour ago I woke up from a nightmare in which we (whoever “we” is) were on a road trip somewhere in a camper, stopped for a picnic in a park, let the cats out, and Aki got mauled by a bear.

But wait, it gets better! The bear, an adolescent cub really, took him in both its front paws and twisted him a bit — something I doubt a bear would be able to do. I remember thinking that there were no sickening breaking sounds, and that this meant there was hope. I somehow wrested him from the bear, and he was lying in my arms belly up, eyes wide like Puss in Boots’, staring at me. I was asking some dog-walking jogger ladies where the nearest animal hospital was, feeling very vivid shock, when I woke up to Aki on my belly, purring sleepily as he had been doing for hours.

He never lies on my belly for hours; I’m usually too tossy-turny. But he did, and I was still enough for his highness, and I think this was my first nightmare ever about him.

I’m glad that nightmares aren’t a regular occurrence, because man, they sure are intense when they happen.

Of course, now I want to go on a road trip with the cats. But the idea of a gas-guzzling camper has always bothered me, and who knows how they’d do in a Honda Fit?