Dodson's Dream---an insert

This one is not a complete story (when are dreams complete stories?), so I'm not sure if you'll find it enjoyable. I was trying to dream of Joeee, but it didn't work :)


I'm not sure it was me, but it started with an undertaker reminiscing about his life story and the family business.

I was about 8 years old, walking down a path in the backyard with my dad. We were leaving the wake room going towards the embalming building. "I know I told you to be nice with our clients, but that doesn't mean you should try to be their friend and make them laugh. This was a wake, you know!" We got to the embalming building and went in.

There were 2 corpses of old men on the tables. My father went to see the first one, because he seemed to think something was wrong. Unlike the other corpse, it was still fully clothed and holding some things. As my dad was looking at him, he started moving his arms and opened his eyes. "He he! Fooled you! When my friend died I took his things and dressed like him so you would think I was him and dead." The old man was obviously senile and my dad was trying to reason with him. There was an old folks home close by and my father was used to dealing with senile old people, so he was trying to be nice with the man.

While he was doing this, I was wandering aimlessly and had gotten between the 2 tables. The other old man, the dead one, spoke to me: "What are you going to do with your kitty?" Apparently I was holding my pet cat in my arms. "My mom says he's going to have joint problems and we need to put him to...to sleep". It was hard to say because I was pretty sad at having to put my cat to sleep. Also, I was really ashamed to be talking about killing my cat in front of a man who had recently died. It seemed kind insensitive and unfair to him.

"That's right, we have to put him down before he suffers", my father said from the other table-side.
"But he's a young cat. How old is he?", asked the dead man.
"He's four I think", I replied.
"He won't have any joint problems until he's well over 10 years old. Why kill him now?"
"My mom says we have to do it now before he suffers"


Then I woke up...glad my cat wasn't put to sleep.