Caroline moves in
Because I like strange…
Caroline was still sleeping when I pulled in front of my house. We had driven for many hours, mostly in silence as my new dog kept nodding on and off. I couldn’t think of anything else to do and she didn’t complain. I turned off the engine and looked at Caroline—her body moving up and down, synchronizing with her little snores—and wondered what I had gotten myself into…all of a sudden she gave out a loud bark and woke herself up.
“Hey, sleepy head, we’re home!” I laughed as I opened my door and got out of the car. Caroline didn’t wait for my invitation and jumped out too, with the backpack trudging along. She dropped it right by the front door and started to unpack.
“And what do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting ready for bed,” she answered with a surprise in her voice.
“Oh, you can sleep in the house, I don’t want you to stay here all alone.”
“No, I’m staying by the door, I’m your guard dog—remember?”
“But I don’t need anybody to guard me, nothing ever happens here! Besides, I have an alarm system in place to protect me.”
“Yeah, that’s nice but you just go in and I’ll stay here…this is me,” she muttered under her breath and slipped into her little sleeping bag.
“Well, suit yourself then…good night, Caroline,” I muttered back and went right in.
I turned on the alarm, and marched right into my bedroom. As I was climbing in bed, I was recalling everything that happened during the day and wondering if I had lost my mind—am I asleep and all this is just a dream? May be I need to pinch myself or just punch myself in the nose, to make sure…ouch-ouch-ouch, that hurt!!! I don’t ever remember my dreams being so vivid and painful! Alright, bed time…tomorrow I’m gonna laugh at it all.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring…
I woke up next morning with the warm sun beams tickling my face. I felt refreshed and somewhat amused by the strange dream I’d had. My mind is playing tricks with me—I must be getting old…I should exercise more, I reasoned with myself. I pulled off my duvet cover and turned to the side of my bed when I noticed something on the floor—something very familiar to my dream.
“Well, I’ll be damned, how can you be real? And what…when…how on earth did you get in?”
The big ball of fur on the floor uncurled itself slowly and gave me a big yawn before answering my rhetorical question.
“It got cold outside and you did invite me in so I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Caroline answered in the most nonchalant way.
“But how did you get in, the door was locked?”
“Nope, you closed the door but didn’t lock it…you were so busy talking to yourself, you must have forgotten.”
“And what about the alarm system—did I forget to set that too?”
“Oh, please! That was so easy—one, two, three, four, five—who wouldn’t guess a password like that??”
“Fair enough…” I said in a weak voice staring at the dog.
There was nothing else I could say in that moment, even though, a swarm of wild thoughts was flying through my head. I felt like I was chasing after them trying to catch them and organize them in some logical way—in some way that could help me fully comprehend what was happening. It was not real, it couldn’t be real, yet—no, I was not going to slap myself again, it hurt too much.
And so I did…
I must have been sitting and staring for some time since I didn’t even noticed that Caroline had left the bedroom. I guess, looking and seeing is not the same. She came back when I was out of bed and putting on my house coat.
“How do you like your morning coffee?”
“What? Well, with a bit of cream, no sugar.”
“Great, I’ll have the same!,” she exclaimed with joy and gave me a big smile from ear to ear. I was stunned.
“They say crazy people don’t know that they are crazy—and I know I’m crazy right now—so it means that I’m not crazy, right?,” I asked out loud just to hear myself think.
“Crazy is as crazy does,” she murmured with a sigh and headed towards the door. Then she turned around, winked at me and said in a gentle voice “Stick with me and you’ll be fine”.
And so I did…
