''writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia''

                                                   -E.L. Doctorow

I honestly don’t really know why I’m writing this, let alone posting it.

I simply got up this morning and felt compelled to get it down, get it out, before it faded into the realm of ephemeral.

Do you ever remember your dreams? One of my friends – let’s call him HL – often transcribes vivid, detailed synopses of his dreams, and shares them unashamedly on Facebook. When he does so, I feel both admiration and envy : that he remembers them so clearly, and that he has the courage to share these often bizarre and illogical, yet beautifully imaginative narratives.

I know that I do dream. Sometimes I can catch and briefly keep snippets of my last dream of the night, but like water seeping through cupped hands, they fall away despite my efforts to contain them.

Occasionally, I have recurring dreams, and these ones seem to be the ones that stick best, the ones that stand the greatest chance of being captured and retained. However, I’ve never attempted to transcribe one until now. And even so, the details are miserably sketchy, not like the Technicolor film that played out in my mind moments before I woke up.

In this particular dream, I was a participant, a narrating character, albeit a bit player. The others, I knew too: though their facial details were vague and blurred, they were easily identifiable as the dozen or so adults with whom I worked when I was a teenager, at my first job in a basement factory in downtown Toronto.

Ok, this is where it gets a bit weird. Dreams do that.
We had a lion.

It was a nice lion, like a pet dog in every respect, except for the sense that it had all the physical size and power of a big cat. It spent most of its time in the background, quietly observing us as we went about our business; a comforting, constant presence.

One day, however, someone decided to take it outside. Even though we were at work in Toronto, somehow there was an endless, open, golden field of tall grass, and we all trooped out to watch the lion. We felt joy and laughter as we watched it follow one of our co-workers into the prairie grass. It began to frolic and play. We laughed, sharing its naïve glee.

Eventually, the co-worker made his way back, and the lion followed, gently, dutifully, unwaveringly.

As they approached, another man’s voice, one I knew well, came from behind us all. One of the co-owners of the business had followed us outside. Our boss explained that we had to let the lion go. The prairie was in fact where the lion was meant to be, not with us, even though it loved us, and we loved it; it was part of our family. The time and circumstances had arrived, and our noble, gentle friend no longer belonged with us, to us.

The lion, for its part, seemed to understand every word. Unquestioningly, it turned and walked slowly, purposefully into the grass, melting away, never once turning to look back. We caught one or two more glimpses as it threaded through the tall strands, weaving itself into the very fabric of the landscape, before it disappeared entirely, as if it had never been there in the first place. We felt an attendant sadness – not a wracking grief, but more a heavy, helpless resignation – in grasping the fact that we would never see it again. And yet there was also a concurrent sense of relief in the realization that the lion had found its own realm of happiness in which to dwell.

My attention switched then, from the dissolving spectacle in front of me to the sounds behind me, as I became aware of a gentle, almost imperceptible weeping.

From my boss.

Who was also my father.