Trust Me, You're Alive

He showed up in my dream again last night. It was different this time.

My father, brother and I are riding in an old car by the medical college quarters neighborhood where we used to live. The houses are all gone now except a single one at the end closer to the hospital, the rest of the area has been overtaken by trees. It must be a young couple with kids living there, we think.
As we pass the streetlamp by the gate, we see lights at the house. Then I hear him bark. I ask to slow down.

He’s dragging his red leash on the ground, running around near the gate. There’s a teen in shorts further away, closer to the house. He doesn’t see me. I say, That’s him. That looks exactly like him. My father agrees, my brother stops the car. There’s solemn consensus on what’s to be done.

I get out, walk back to the gate and push it open. Kutoos looks up at me, wagging his tail. I see the hair on his face still parts the way it used to, revealing glimmering eyes and a smile. He sprints to me. It’s really him.

I carry back him to our car, he sits in the back with me. My brother and my father are ecstatic, both yelling Kutoos and turning from their front seats to caress him. I feel underneath his fur pinching and squeezing the familiar skin and flesh while he continues to pant, unable to contain his excitement. We tell him how much everyone missed him and that we weren’t ever letting go again. I wonder how my mother and (other) brother will react minutes from now when they see him back. It’s really him and now we have him back, my father keeps repeating. Maybe things will go back to normal now, I think.

Then, slowly, he starts whimpering. I don’t understand it. He hasn’t ever done that in my dreams, this never happens (I’m aware on a very subliminal level). He whines and looks sad, and turns to me with unknowing eyes. This is new and it’s horrible. He continues to cry. And just as we knew what to do when we recognized him at the house, we knew the only thing left to do.

I carry him back and leave him inside the gate. He walks in without another look at me. The boy sees me this time, I softly mouth with shame, I thought he was ours but he’s not. Sorry. Like that should make me not an asshole.

But I still feel like one as I walk back to the car, because I remember how Noyna lost her two dachshunds to a car that stopped on the road in the middle of the night and abducted them. They were assholes.

It felt like him, it was just like him, it was all those years ago now that I remember and gather some sense of the timeline. I still don’t know how old I am in this dream, only that he looked not a day older than the last time I saw Kutoos.
I get back in the rear seat. It’s quiet and dark.

It wasn’t him.

My dad has gone back to one of his moods and doesn’t speak. My brother starts the car.

Then I remember, I had held him in this seat more than a decade ago on the way to the hospital. And I had watched him on the table, I had sobbed my eyes out and then we had brought his body back in the afternoon to bury him. It was raining in the evening.

My brothers arrived home later in the day, and the three of us kids cried ourselves to sleep that night. Three that I know of, but I always believed it was five.

I had forgotten.

---

When I woke up, I thought about how different it was this time. I usually dream that he comes back home, as if years haven’t passed. He just walks around our street one day and then walks into our gate, wagging his tail, smile in his eyes. I tell him I knew all this time that he’d come back. I don’t ask him how he’s eaten all these years, where all he’s been or how much time has passed. It’s as if he was only lost weeks ago, he only missed a few meals and now he’s just returned to be fed by me again. I tell him everyone missed him and that nothing was ever the same again. Maybe I can watch dog movies again now that he’s back.

He stays with us for a few days then walks out one day, unbothered, bored by the small yard and the boring house with adults. He walks out just as easily as he had walked in. Then, once again, I remember we had lost him years ago, I remember the day it rained in the evening, so it couldn’t have been him. This is what I always end up with in dreams. We eventually realize it wasn’t him after all, still always quick to believe a lie and to have him back. How could we ever say no?

Which is why it was so different today.

I was sad when I woke up. There are no dogs in my real life now, but whenever that happens, I can watch dog movies again. Just like I told tell him.