Dognapping

Night had fallen an indeterminable amount of time ago and a light snow flurry was adding to the already almost ankle-deep sheet of snow covering the ground in a large slightly concave clearing in a forest, where I and around twenty others stood and sat in a large dispersed group around some picnic benches. We were waiting for food; all of us were homeless and it was meal time. When the grub finally arrived there was the usual murmur of complaint at the meagerness of the portions, among which I recall were what appeared to be burger shots. The dogs, however, that my less responsible peers insist on having for security and as panhandling props, didn't complain, though they certainly did beg.

At one point, and this is a section where my recollection of the dream is hazy, a couple dogs got into a rather mild tussle, and in the process one got loose and ran off somewhere. We all felt bad, or acted like we did, but meal time was over by then and it wasn't getting any warmer or earlier and individually and in small groups we dispersed to our respective camps and squats. For some reason I ran a ways, perhaps out of fear for my belongings or because I didn't want anyone to see where I was camping, through another clearing nearby, passing out of view of most of the group behind me and catching up with a solitary figure some score or two yards ahead of me. At some point I ended up eavesdropping on a small camp of about four traveling punk rock kids, which was probably near my camp, and they had the runaway dog there and were discussing eating it — though to their credit the discussion lacked enthusiasm.

The fun part: my awareness existing in two places simultaneously. I could see the owner of the dog, an old bearded man, looking for his dog with three charitable peers near the clearing where dinner was served, looking rather forlorn. The wind had picked up a little and the snowfall was picking up in intensity, promising a rough night for those who don't bed down early enough. He called the dog a couple times, but his voice was feeble, and one man put his hand on his shoulder and recommended that he save his strength and worry about bedding down for the night, on account of the weather. Meanwhile, I walked into the kids' camp and patted my legs and called to the dog by its name (an advantage to not being restricted to just a single point in space-time!), and the dog followed me, surprising the kids but eliciting no overt hostility from them. I jogged ahead of the dog, calling its name repeatedly and it gleefully loped after me; it was one of the most beautiful Malamutes I've seen and I'd fallen in love with it immediately. We ran into the search party on the other side of the clearing we were in, as they were morosely trudging back to the dinner clearing and presumably from their to their camps.

The dog ran up to the old man and licked his hand, wagging its tail slightly and he was overjoyed and thanked me. At that moment in the story a shift in time occurred and a small group of us homeless were sitting near a roaring fire, the man sitting with his dog and I all by myself near one of the punk rock kids, a girl I recall as being the one who expressed the most vehement reluctance to kidnapping the dog and eating it, and who looked miserable with both hunger and guilt. I though of consoling her, suggesting that she take and eat another similar, and apparently masterless dog (where did that one come from?) sitting nearby. I'm not sure if I was serious or if it was a cruel jest on my part, to rub some salt into the wounds in her conscience, but either way I thought better of it.