In the past year or so, I've begun having a certain recurring dream. Not exactly the same dream every time, but a recurring theme that twists into different situations every time. It always has to do with suddenly remembering that I have forgotten about a certain animal in a certain cage or aquarium, and realizing I haven't fed them in a very long time, and then being afraid to look, lest I see something awful inside, like a rotting body or something.

Last night's version was that I suddenly realized that I had forgotten about two additional animals living in the hermit crab's cage. One, a dark mouse, and the other, I'm not sure, some other rodent. There was the typical dread at looking into the cage, and I seem to remember that once I did, I saw the dark mouse, in bad shape, clinging to his water bottle on the side of the cage. I felt so guilty.

I guess that's the result of having so many animals. Especially when we still had the gerbils, there was so much upkeep that I felt like I was always falling behind on something. It also doesn't help that the hermit crab cage is now exactly where the gerbils' cage was, so maybe that's part of why I thought there should be two more rodents in the cage. I'm sure Billy and Lars have gone on to their heavenly rest, but my mind is still haunted in a very ordinary way by the confusion of space and time.

Also, I found a dead wild mouse in our backyard yesterday, still soft. Poison? Or murdered by B.P.? My guess is poisoned, since he was still soft and B.P. had been inside overnight, and the mouse seemed untouched, but it's always possible B.P. thought I deserved a treat for being so nice to him... : )