Memory Strip Pt.II

Memory #4
I wake up in the middle of the night a few times because of some god-awful squealing coming from under my bed. It’s high-pitched and otherworldly and doesn’t stop. Someone lifts me out of my bed and takes me to another room. Later that day I’m brought back to see a box filled with the litter of puppies that were birthed beneath my mattress.

Memory #5
We bring dad home from prison. I give him a tour of the apartment and when he bends over to pet the dog I warn him to be careful because, “she pees all over the place.”

Memory #6
Mickey the dog is dead. I see her limp body in the alley by the side door. I think she’s asleep but she doesn’t respond.

I find out years later that she was poisoned by a neighbor who had some kind of running feud with the family concerning the disposition of the dog. I liked her but apparently my neighbor did not.

Memory #7
We’ve moved down the street to a larger house right next to a brick drugstore and I have two dreams that haunt me at a marrow level to this day.

[Dream 1] The Sun King-
I’m looking out to the backyard. The yard is a hill that rolls down to the train tracks and access road at the bottom of our lot. But my eyes are skyward, trained on a sun that looks like a man’s face with what appears to be a large straw-like hollow cylinder running sideways through the whole thing. The sun’s cheeks are puffed up (Dizzy Gillespie style) as he blows a large swirl of windy air up and out the top of the straw, exiting just above the ear.

I later came across this image in a list of archetypal dreams while reading a Karl Junge book on dreams. It’s interesting that it is the sun that creates the wind. But I can’t claim any sterling insight- I was just a five year old dreaming.

[Dream II] Killer Giraffes-
Why this one scares the hell out of me is a puzzle. It frightened the daylights out of me then and the thought of it still brings immediate goose-bumps to this day.

It’s a simple image:
I dream (or was it real) that I wake up and open the window curtain.

My bed is right up next to the window and I pull back the curtain to see the long necks of seven or eight giraffes (no bodies, just necks and faces) lined up against the brick wall of the drugstore next door. In unison they lean toward my house and window in an effort to get me. Up and down they bob their heads and I’m paralyzed with fear.

It know it seems innocuous, comical, and not the least bit disturbing. But I’m getting creeped out right now just writing about. So I’m gonna stop.