This dream was lost to me until a conversation reminded me of it, but it’s horror is so unusual for me, I wanted to write it down. It seemed crazy and out of nowhere at the time, and then upon further reflection, it made all the scary sense in the world. Sometimes dreams mirroring real life before it happens can be most terrifying of all.
I’m in the house he and I first lived in together. It is furnished just the same. A veterinarian lives there now, with her husband and pets, and they made it a bigger house, but in my dream it is the same small one he and I shared.
He is gone. I wander through the rooms, looking in each one, even in the closets and behind the shower curtain. I look out into the yard, on the screen porch that does not exist anymore, the one where he held the kitten in his coat while we smoked cigarettes, the one where he brought me home the puppy. He is not there.
I walk back into the room, and there is an old friend. He smiles and I am happy to see him and to hear his voice. I have missed him and worried about him. He goes to the bathroom. I notice his friend sitting there on my couch. I thought they weren’t friends anymore. I thought they had a falling out. I am glad to see him, too, and I tell him:
“I am glad to see you, but I’m surprised you’re back.”
“I’m back for a reason,” he says, and there is meaning, but I cannot decipher it.
Our friend walks back in the room. He is ashen, grayish, emaciated, and no longer wearing a shirt, only too-large jeans held up only by a belt. He looks at me with sorry eyes, and he drops to his knees, and opens his mouth to say something, but all that comes out is blood, all over our old carpet and his own porcelain white chest.