Perspectives

                This morning, as with all others, I woke up before everyone else after a nice night of entertaining dreams. I groggily opened my eyes, stretched a bit, and made my way into the girl’s room. Fortunately, she had left the door slightly ajar, and I was able to enter. To my surprise, the half-folded mattress was still on the floor. I took this opportunity to curl up on it and catch some beauty sleep.

~~

When I woke up, I saw that the dog had come to sleep on the extra mattress in my room. It was only 6am, but I didn’t feel like sleeping any more. I watched the little dog sleep for a while, but it was dark, and he wasn’t moving much, so I turned on a light and picked up the APUSH summer reading book from off the floor. Might as well do something productive, if I’m awake. Soon after I turned on the light, the dog woke up and left the room. I thought about calling him back to let him jump onto my bed, but decided not to make a loud noise and possibly wake up my parents.

~~

I had just fallen back asleep when she woke up and turned on the light. I tried to keep my eyes closed and drift back to dream land, but the sound of her moving around and the sudden brightness of the light made it difficult to do so. I gave up and walked out of the room in search of a shadier place to nap. I found that place on a couch downstairs. I jumped on, and started creating my dream barrier by turning around myself three times. The invisible barrier was to keep unwanted dreams and evil spirits away. I stomped on and clawed at the remains of the spirits that had been enclosed by the dream barrier so that they, too, would be unable to invade my dreams.

~~

He had left my door wide open when he left the room, so I could hear him as he trotted down the stairs, over the wooden floor and jumped onto the couch. I heard him scratching at the leather, and momentarily wondered why he did that every time he picked a new sleeping spot. I had read somewhere that wild dogs had once turned up the leaves and twigs around them in order to create a more comfortable sleeping spot, but here, the leather couch had probably been more comfortable before he had scratched it all up. I shrugged, and went back to reading the book.

~~

                The squirrel stared at me with its small black eyes, holding its acorn protectively to its chest. I snarled, warning it away from the house. This is my land. The squirrel chattered angrily, then started to turn away. Still holding the acorn, it crouched low and then catapulted itself into the air, and started flapping its wings. The squirrel was a bird. It chirped and turned its head towards me, and I saw that its eyes were still that of the squirrel… I woke with a start to the incessant chirping of the sparrows. Stupid birds, entering my thoughts and ruining my sleep. Too bad the dream barrier was useless against outside sounds. I sat up and put my front paws on the back of the sofa. Away, birds! I barked at them. This was my life, in both waking and sleeping hours: protecting the house from those malevolent squirrels and birds.

~~

                Jeez. He was barking again, at some unseen threat to our house. That little dog had such a big voice, for someone his size. He barked so much to the point that I could tell people that to find our house, once they were in the general area, they only needed to listen for the sound of barking. It would be coming from him. The barking continued, and after a substantial amount of time had gone by, I decided that he was hungry and barking for his breakfast. I put down the book and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

~~

                The sound of the food container being opened momentarily distracted me from my security post. It’s nice to know that all I do as the official protector of the house is appreciated.