Dream on April 20, 2011

In my dream, I was stepping out of the front door of my parents’ home in suburban Fremont with our dog, Cotton. He’s the chubby, fluffy American Eskimo we had growing up. He’s been dead since 2005. Since he died, I’ve rarely——if ever——recalled dreaming about him.

The sun shone high in the cloudless sky which hung over our residential neighborhood. Cotton and I were trotting out to the front yard so that he could run around in circles and take a poop. Right after we giddily dashed out the front door, I came to a stop when I saw that the small tree in the front yard was teaming with a flock of white cranes. They took flight——all twenty or so of them——flapping their majestic wings, their necks craned toward the sun. I gawked and watched them soar away before I turned my attention back to Cotton.

The dry grass and weeds in our front lawn was uncharacteristically high——about a foot high. That’s when I saw a red snake lunge at my dog, seemingly biting him in the rear though Cotton didn’t yelp. All the cranes apparently had captured snakes in their talons and let them go as they flew away from us. I bent over and petted Cotton, making sure he was okay. I couldn’t tell if he had been bitten, but I guided him toward the front door area at a safe distance from the snakes.

Once he was safe, I turned back to the front lawn. My eyes danced and alertly glanced over the ground, searching for the snakes. But they were gone, leaving our lawn scattered with foot-long carcasses of the skin they had shed.


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