In my dream last night, a morning’s twilight run once again found me in the midst of having to turn off my trusty CatEye Opticube (clamped to my running hat) so as not to give correct visual location to what looked like two pit bulls or dobies following me. To avoid being eaten alive, I had to put the hammer down and zig zag into weeds and creeks and further into the wild, messing up my brand new pair of Asics Nimbus VII’s, and completely ruining one of my AeRT days.
I had been nipped out here twice on the bike and preyed on by these beasts.
The next day in my dream, I encountered the same sequence. I’m running and its pitch dark, except this time, I was wielding a deadly, sharp Bowie knife, which fit into my running, fanny bag. I recall the Bowie knife being made of carbon or titanium and being perfectly aerodynamic to wield on vicious animals. I also remember before leaving the house of seeing an Indian made sharp meat hatchet attached to the top tube of my road bike.
I must have been on a mission, subconsciously. Its time animal heads rolled out here, and I’m rolling them.
I’m thinking such weapons were there for me to “D-Con” loose pit bulls, other mischevious, roaming dogs, coyote’s, black bears, bobcats and snakes, animals and reptiles I continue to encounter more and more on these twilight runs and bike rides.
As I ran along in my dream, I new confidence flowed over me. No longer will these animals chase and try to bite me, nip me, or frighten me from their world, I, however, will bring the battle to them. I am tired of being chased by loose dogs and mad wildlife. I tried this peacefully. I tried to be Mr. Greenpeace, Mr. Mutual Of Omaha Guy, Mr. Kwai Chang; yet they continue to chase me, nip me, and try to bite me. At some point, you just have to fight back: and by fighting back, I will not use “mace” or use my cellphone; I am not calling the police; instead, when attacked, I will kill, and kill swiftly, like a crack African Safari Hunter, or an Apache Indian.
In my dream, I was a running Rambo, running in complete purity, confidence and power, and absence of fear of loose pit bulls and biting dogs. Both the owner and the animal were now to be given no chance for reasoning but rather swift justice, suffered by immediate violent retribution on that animal, without a hearing, without lawyers involved, without understanding, right on the road itself.
I had concluded in my dream that there is no peaceful solution to this war between me and these biting dogs, in fact, peace itself ratches up more of a confrontation. Try to outrun a vicious dog on foot or bike by one, indicating you don’t want to cause any commotion in his life, and you will most likely do nothing more than stir him into action to do exactly the opposite, in fact, the act of running away or avoiding an encounter with a mean dog, itself ironically compels or provokes the dog to even chase you harder—because you send out fear signals.
Enough was enough.
Eventually, I was attacked by the pack of dobies, rotts and unleashed dogs who had bitten me on the road before. This time, however, when the Bowie knife came out, they knew I meant business, and I proceeded to slay with my hands the leading dog who had bitten me on the bike, several times. The bloody battle went on into the wee hours of the morning, as I fought of one insurgent biting dog after another. I lost track of time. Then, a pace line of road bikers found me, battle fatigued sleeping against an oak tree, with the road they normally were paranoid of riding on, littered with the dead biting dogs they had so feared.
After slaying that dog, we all hoisted up his carcus on a sign, with a sign for the other loose dogs to read: “REX IS DEAD. NO MACE. YOU COULD BE NEXT.”
I became a hero of the road bikers who threw a keg party, for they themselves been bullied and victimized by the dogs out there on that road. After a few weeks of getting control back, in the lart part of my dream, I was running along, I heard one of the beaten pack ask: “Hey, Mr. No Mace? Are We Are Cool OR What?”
