The Wolf and the Dog
EVERY TIME I talk about the shooting, I dream my dog is murdered.
I am standing in a field in the twilight, high grass painted black against the glowing, lavender-gold sky. My dog has run away. A man is calling her by her name, and she’s running toward him, not me. I can tell from the tone of his voice that he isn’t calling her out of love and concern, that there’s hate beneath the honey in his voice, and when Daisy comes to him, he says, “I’ll teach you to run away from me again,” and I see his hand, clutching a hammer, rising high above his head, and he brings it down on her over and over and over again. He beats her to death and I stand there, shaking, paralyzed, unable to scream, unable to save her as she howls and cries in agony, until finally there’s silence.
“The daemonic night and its chief product, the nightmare, have always been a special hell for survivors,” writes David Morris in his study of trauma, . Daisy—my most cherished companion, the tragic object of my nightmares—is the
