Metamorphin Time: A Dream After Reading Kafka
By
Susan Lewis
As Gini Samuels awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, she found herself transformed in her bed into a large apricot poodle. She lay curled in a ball nestled against the pillow, one floppy ear warm against her face and partially covering one eye, which is no doubt why she had slept so long. Raising her head, she saw out of the other eye that the clock read 7:40. The side of the bed where her husband slept was empty, the covers thrown back carelessly across the floral sheets.
This startled her because she had always been a light sleeper and was always the first one up, hopping out of bed at the first signs of morning. She had to make sure her oldest son was up and out to catch the 7:15 bus to school. She then would empty the dishwasher, make lunches for the younger three, prepare breakfasts, sign any permission slips, write necessary checks, and make sure the children cleaned up their rooms and practiced their instruments before leaving for school at 8:45. Yet the bedroom was silent, with the door closed, the way it was on those weekend mornings when her husband got up first to meet his basketball buddies at the gym.
And, of course, there was her situation. At first she assumed that this was an extension of her dream, which had, in fact, been about a dog. Her children had been begging her for months to get a dog, and in her dream they had gotten one, which had then escaped. She'd been very upset (in the dream) because their house was bordered by busy streets, and she'd been running through the streets chasing the children, who were chasing the dog, who was chasing a squirrel. Just as she'd heard the loud blaring of horns and crushing sounds of metal, the dream had ended or perhaps switched scenarios to her current situation. But as her head cleared, it seemed not to be a dream at all.
The bedroom was the same as it always had been: four walls, a queen-sized bed, a chair in the corner on which lay a pile of unmatched socks. Yesterday she'd dumped a pile of laundry on her husband's side of the bed as a not so subtle hint that he needed to help out a little more at home, and he'd pushed it to her side when he lay down to watch the game. She'd stood there, in front of the TV, folding the shirts and pants and underwear. She'd left the socks as a compromise. He'd then moved the entire pile to the chair before turning out the lights for the night.
She stretched her long arms—or what she had thought of as arms, though both of them were now covered, along with the rest of her body, with soft curly hair—and opened her mouth in a wide yawn. Pushing with her haunches, she rose unsteadily on all fours, trying to find her way out of the covers. She stepped gingerly to the edge of the bed, wondering if there was a way to ease off or if she should just jump.
A loud banging on the bedroom door startled her, and she leapt, with surprising agility, onto the soft carpet.
"MOOOMMMM! I have to be at band practice early today!" came her daughter's plaintive cry. "Brian won't put on his socks and shoes, and Andrew hit him with the package of Golden Grahams!"
Gini's ears perked up, and she stared at the door.
"MOOOMMMM!" She recognized the anguished sob of her youngest child, who was no doubt in the throes of another battle with his brother. Gini padded over to the door and sniffed at the crack, smelling graham cracker and toothpaste, and suddenly feeling very hungry. "Momm! I can't find my socks and Andrew took all of the Golden Grahams and I didn't have any, and now there are no more!"
"Where is Andrew?" Gini started to ask but recoiled at the sharp barking sound that filled the room. The voices from the other side of the door stopped abruptly, and there was a long moment of silence. Gini wondered if they could hear her heart pounding.
"Mom, do you have a dog in there?" came her daughter's excited voice. "They got us a dog! They got us a dog! That's why the door is closed!" she said excitedly.
Gini closed her mouth and trotted back to the other side of the bedroom, suddenly panicked. Things were certainly getting out of hand, and she was in no position to explain what was going on, let alone settle fights, drive her daughter to band practice, or find Brian's socks— though the last job would probably be the one thing that in her current condition she could do better than ever before.
"Mom!! The door is locked. Let us in!"
"Mom! I have to go!"
"Mom!"
The sounds of voices receded into Gini's consciousness. The bed with its
rumpled covers looked soft and inviting. She leapt up and circled twice before settling down in a cool spot right smack in the middle of the bed. With her hind legs tucked easily under her, she burrowed her head between her folded front paws and closed her eyes.