Fever Dreams
Dear Faithful Reader, I’m posting another short, short creative nonfiction piece. This piece involves my puppy, Turlough the Schipperke.
The creative nonfiction question is: “Who would you be if you were who your dog thinks you are?”
I hope you like what I’ve written; it’s a bit different for me. You can let me know by leaving a comment in the box below. So, here goes.
Turlough, the Schipperke, (born under the first sign of the Zodiac) romps from room to room with unbounded energy creating a soft breeze which gently stirs my hair as I repose quietly on the floor in the center of my living room.
“Turlough,” I call. He ignores my command. Zooming round and round me in concentric circles, I sense he regards me through the lens of Wordsworth’s “She was a Phantom of Delight”. Am I “a dancing shape, an image gay, to haunt, to startle, to waylay”?
Or, am I the “Wild Thing” in the Troggs song? “You make my heart sing, you make everything, groovie.” Or in my case, Zoomie.
As I wait patiently for his frenetic, explosive movements to stop, I ponder the question: Who would I be if I were who Turlough believed me to be?
My answer is simple.
I (born under the last sign of the Zodiac), am intuitive, creative, and perhaps a bit psychic; able to dream without limits. I imagine my name is Sylvan of the Forest. I am a sleek-coated, two-legged female with mesmerizing hazel eyes and elfin shaped ears.
I am descended from the now extinct, Northern Leauvenaar ancestral tribe who roamed the glaciers and frozen tundra before settling near the Belgian city of Leuven where my ancestors provided escort and safe passage to wagons along the roadways. I carry the tribe’s refined sense of smell, sure-footedness, and protective instincts in my DNA.
But I am also an anomaly, unlike my name I do not blend into the pastoral setting, instead I am a black-and-silver haired sprite, moving in and out of Turlough’s fever dreams: beckoning, running, chasing; ending in a tumbled heap on our living floor.
He zooms by again, closer this time and this time I proffer a temptation in my extended hand and say, “Come play/lay with me or I will haunt your dreams and leave you howling at the moon.”
Turlough lands beside me, contentedly chews his treat, and all is calm once again.
So very creative! Nice