The Painful Presence of Absence

After another sleepless night, it was hardly surprising that right after I fell asleep at 5:10 a.m., my mind projected a surreal movie onto the inner side of my eyelids. While I was revelling in the scenes, even though the plot was so confusing that after waking up, recalling the whole dream seemed like attempting to run a Marathon, the bewildering chapters congealed into a seamless tale. Nevertheless, the final scene almost broke my heart, in which my beloved dog, who died five years ago, appeared and tore open wounds that would never heal. His absence is still beyond my comprehension to this day. The void he left behind is the presence of his absence, which is rather a controversial notion. Even so, I would be much poorer without his memory and the fact that he gradually wagged himself into our life as its essential part shows how much we loved him and how much he loved us. I recall his presence every day to mitigate the pain his absence causes, and I would easily give away anything dear to me to see and embrace him again.