Otis' Dream, parts 1306 - 1309

1306. But then, in the twinkling of an eye, the grassy shore turns itself into a steep slope with rocks, prickers and brambles. Though unoccupied moments before, now there are all of these angry wolves. Where did they come from?  Why can't the dream be nice for a change. But no, unexpected problems and disasters are all that can be expected from dreams.

 1307. Dreams are invariably like that. They hold out hope to you, a means of escape, and then as the opportunity presents itself, the petulant, insidious dream produces some pointless obstacle. Who are these dreams creators working for anyway. Why do dreams behave this way, you ask. Why is it that nine times out of ten a dream which is promising to have a delightful outcome, just at the last minute rearranges itself so that your salvation becomes something odious instead.

1308. "Well then," said Buboni, "Not only do we have Aunt Jemima's stories with accounts of peoples prayers, now we have a real oddity: the details of the dreams of a dog like wolf from a thousand years ago. Pray tell us Duck, how on earth would you know what some dog might be dreaming. How can you be sure that perhaps he was having an entirely different dream. If he was starving I think it more likely that he would be dreaming of cranberry scones and jam with tea."

1309. The dream of scones and tea could be concocted with the same dream like devices such as the scone transforming itself into a stone, and the tea becomes spoiled milk.  The kind portly woman giving the wolf the tea is bound to mutate into the veterinarian's wife, recently returned from the spas in Albania and she plans to chain Otis to a stake in the yard if only she can find the way out of her bedroom that now has no doors, even though it had several just minutes ago.

Otis' Dream, parts 1302 - 1305

1302. In his entire life there was nothing to compare to riding in the back of a cart over a rocky road. One time he tried to cross a river and was swept off his feet and carried along a distance until the current washed him up on a river bank. The memory of being carried away by the river was the only thing his mind could attach to the sensation of the cart jogging along the road.

1303. He had a vivid dream, one of those dreams more real than everyday life, a dream whose events, although illogical in the extreme, nevertheless seem much more significant that one's mundane everyday life. In his dream he was in the middle of a river, carried away by the current. He was in danger of drowning, and his only salvation was to manage to swim as best he could, to one shore or the other.

1304. Otis struggled against the current and gradually made his way to the farther shore, but he was dismayed to discover that the shore contained a number of individuals determined to see that he remained in the water. They were the residents of blacksmith boy's village. With cudgels and pitchforks they jabbed at him to keep him away.

1305. You can be certain what this nefarious dream is now going produce for poor Otis. You have had dreams just like this. The farther shore where he can finally escape is, in its turn, covered over with howling angry wolves of his clan, all determined to destroy him if he comes out of the river. The shore, just moments before, was unpopulated; a gentile slope of inviting grass came right down to the edge of the water.

Otis' Dream, parts 1298 - 1301

1298. And what is the result? All of your excitement is swept aside as you come down with the worst cold you have ever had.  For three years now you have been dreaming of the ten days you were going to spend in Paris. You saved up, you got your passport, even though you don't like the picture. You purchased new luggage,and you even have one of those little satchels to keep your money and documents in.

1299. The hotel is not what you expected but it is all right, after-all you are going to be out around town every day so it doesn't matter. And then, you come down with a terrible cold. It was just a tingling in the back of your throat getting off the plane, but now, on your first morning in  Paris, you have a fever, and you are coughing like Ippolit Terentyev in Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot.'  You try to go out for a walk but have to retreat back to your hotel room and lie down again.

1300. And so you spend seven days of your trip to Paris in your hotel room, only going out once to see a doctor, whose office you never managed to find. On the eight day you wake up feeling all right, and by mid-morning you are the happiest you have ever can remember being. Your two days in Paris will be more exciting that the ten would have been. That then is exactly how it was with Otis. He was sick to death for ten days. He would have died there by the side of the road except that...

1301. Except that he was rescued by some travelers on the road, who saw him lying in a ditch, ascertained he was still alive, and loaded him into the back of their cart. It was a cart with very old-fashioned wheels, recently repaired. Otis slept soundly in the back of the cart, sleep is really not the correct word, he was actually in a coma.  He had never ridden in a cart, and although comatose, still he was aware of a strange rocking and bumping sensation he tried to fathom in his dreams.

Otis' Dream, parts 1294 - 1297

1294. As for Otis he made his way south, in the woods by day, and the road by night, never knowing for sure who he now was, or what he was now supposed to be doing. Various old notions rattled around in his head, he had to find a place where buildings were constructed only from 'marbles', how could their be such a thing? But that was the odd idea handed down for generations.

1295. The stone monuments he would have to climb over would, for some reason, be extremely cold, and covered with ice and snow. He was to look for very important people in robes, who went by the name of Jesus' Seizures.  These notions, completely wrong, were also hopelessly out of date.

1296. The journey Otis was embarked on was fraught with dangers, but the single most difficult problem was what to eat each day. If he had been simply a wolf, uncorrupted by living among people for many months, there would be little problem, but he had become accustomed to a rich diet: delicious food he had to exert no effort to find. Returning again to a diet of moles, mice, rats, and the occasional rabbit was the most difficult problem of his journey.

1297. He found he could not keep a mouse down. He might be so hungry he was dizzy, and yet it was impossible to look at his dinner with anything but disgust. Meanwhile, he came down with a terrible sore throat.   Perhaps you yourself have gone on a long trip someplace. You may start out full of excitement, your mind is full of half formed images of the new and unexpected things you are going to see, but then you feel this tingling in the back of your throat.

Otis' Dream, parts 1290 - 1293

1290. Otis was awarded this dubious honor that evening, and by the morning he was many miles from his clan, from the village and from the blacksmith's boy. He was in search of Rome. He had no idea exactly what Rome was, and he had no idea how to find out. All he knew was that whatever it was, it was far in the south, and to find it he would have to climb over some tall ice covered stone monuments.

1291. Don't expect me to tell you about how upset the blacksmith's boy was, it goes without saying. Even though he knew for certain that Otis was a wolf, and also that the Vet was certain to cause problems, still he had hoped somehow a solution would present itself one way or another. He awoke in the morning with a gloomy foreboding, unable to imagine any possible solution to his problem.

1292. But, surprisingly Otis was no where to be found. Is their such as thing a gloomy relief?  That is what he felt.  As for Otis, it was many days before he was able to consider his feelings about his recent past. He had somehow prepared himself to give up being a wolf, and adopt the life-style of a dog, sine he had no choice. But now he was neither.

1293. As for the blacksmith's boy, he had many fond memories of Otis; those memories filled him with tender longing, mixed with sorrow. But his fondest recollection of the wolf had only to do with himself: it was the recollection of that single moment when he overcame his fear of the strange black dog. That moment transformed his character.  He did not notice it, but from that time on nobody ever dared to think of picking a fight with him, he had become somehow dangerously wolf like.

Otis' Dream, parts 1286 - 1289

1286. Otis with his well fed look and his glossy fur, romping and scampering in the clover covered fields. It is my considered opinion that the wolves experienced a poignant pang of memory: the memory of their own childhood, when they had engaged in the same behavior as children.  Back then they bit each other's ears and knocked each other down in happy abandon. Now, as adults, an accidental brush could lead to a deadly confrontation.

1287. So they watched, and at a certain moment Otis was thrown over onto his back, and for a second he could not right himself. All four of his paws were waving around as if each paw was trying frantically to draw some circles in the air. This was too much for the wolf spectators, and they shied away bent on mischief, and Otis' destruction.

1288. The wolf community decided that they had only one option; to exile Otis from the community altogether. This had to be done in a way that would not arouse any dangerous animosity. They had a tradition going back to their ancient Roman origins of a kind of ostracism, the chosen wolf was sent on an important ceremonial journey.

1289. Just as when medieval knights went in search of the Holy Grail, and they were not expected to return till they had found it; so wolves were sent in search of Rome, and were not to return until after they had discovered it. The end result of these journeys in search of Rome was inevitably death by slow starvation or freezing  all alone somewhere in the Alps, since no contemporary wolf had any idea where, or even what Rome was.

Otis' Dream, parts 1282 - 1285

1282. Under what circumstance does a teacher tell one of her students her entire life story?  If you assume it happened after class that would be very nearly the truth. So I debated in my mind if I should tell them more about Mrs. Festini, but to gain time to consider the question, and to think about how I might tell her story without saying too much about myself in the process, I put them off by asking also about the fate of Otis, and the blacksmith's boy.

1283, So the Duck said. "The wolves lay dead in the path and Otis and the blacksmith's boy stepped over their bodies and continued on their way. It was their habit to stop just before reaching the boys home, and spend several minutes playing boy-dog games before separating for the day; these were the standard dog-boy games consisting of fetch, head butting, and wrestling.

1284. It happened that on this particular fateful day, several members of Otis' extended family were spying on them from a nearby wood. What they saw filled them with understandable consternation. They could accept watching fetch-a-stick, and they were untroubled by head butting, but the wrestling was very upsetting for them.

1285. Perhaps it was seeing Otis having so much fun, whereas their lives consisted of unending desperate frustration. The sight filled them with understandable envy. Here they were, half starved as always, wondering where their next meal was coming from, and the eternal question of if they would be killed it the process of acquiring it; and then here was Otis fetching sticks in the grass with wild abandon.