Dream Operator
And so the circle was complete as Caleb the wolf looked into his cub's golden eyes after his wife's delivery at Virgil Orthodox- he was like this at one point in the past. He was just a cub once, suckling on his mother's teats, becoming bipedal and continent, and learning the laws of how to treat others, regardless of their species. He had lived through the difficulties of his teenage years, the devil-may-care wild boy days of his youth to settle down and become a father. And now Caleb's cub looked up to him and wanted so much to be like him, in much the same way Caleb did with his own father. Right in front of him was a bundle of joy and life, with many more years ahead of him than Caleb could ever hope. And as he looked on at the cub still only a few days old, Caleb knew that very soon he would become gray (well, more gray than he already was) and that old age and its accompanying difficulties would follow.
The inability to remember important information, canid andropause, the loss of certain "functions"- Caleb knew these things because he had seen these things with his own father. Having a son meant your life was at least one quarter gone. And he knew the child would one day envy him for his impressive size, and knowledge of the world while Caleb would envy the child for his youth. Caleb wished to be his son, his son wished to be Caleb. But as unattractive as growing old is, Caleb had waited his life for this- the responsibility of fatherhood. This new and exciting world the wolf shared with his wife Janet and newborn son was in every sense of the term, a dream come true. And he did not want to wake up from this dream.
For the joys and obligations of parenting were there for him, a fantasy he was unaware of having, something that he dreaded alongside marriage during his lousy sneak-thief days. Caleb's father might have been long gone but his advice still rang through his son's pointed ears. "Everyone thinks that is impossible to say in exact words what their dreams are, let alone realize them. If you sit down, think what you want to do and give it a name, then the answers of what you want and how to get come before you like an open book." And now since Caleb's dream of leaving the sins of yesterday behind him had been fulfilled, he realized how important each milestone was in that dream. He had been successful in earning a G.E.D, settling down with a good she-wolf, gaining a steady income, owning a good home, and believe it or not, becoming a dad. Putting that abstract and general goal of a better life in more certain and specific terms helped this troubled wolf in rebuilding from the wreckage of a dysfunctional cubhood. The wolf had accomplished what he had set out to do, the rest of the book was his to control- he was now the dream operator.
Caleb joined the naked furless paw with one of his own, and the other he joined with his wife, who was needless to see the process finally complete with the birth of a perfectly healthy male. The warmth of a family moment, of "expanding his tents" to include another family member lent from heaven itself, nothing could have compared in the wolf's mind to the glory and majesty of this one moment. This was bigger than life, this was unadulterated joy and happiness and contentment. And as he screwed up his muzzle to delight the newborn cub (the first faces that a child of any species sees will be the ones it associates with protectors, and Caleb and Janet knew this), he thought back to his honeymoon with his wife, just two years ago to see cathedrals and medieval architecture in Milan.
"Don't you see all those angels near the transept?" Caleb remembered Janet saying, pointing her claw towards the beautiful wall painting of angels of various species, halos around their heads, giving divine instruction to all the species on how to treat one another- with kindness, respect, love, decency and humility. And as Caleb saw his new son's muzzle, he thought back to those angels on the walls of that cathedral. It was as though all those angels up there with their head honcho, whoever He may have been, dreamed the entire universe, with all its wondrous creatures to life. And they had dreamed of innocence, the innocence on a newborn cub's face like Caleb's son. But being a father was what Caleb wanted and he would realize his sacred hopes of peace and harmony as a new father. He was the dream operator.
That night, at the Wolf residence...
The cub's first night was anything but peaceful and soon the visions of angels on a North Italian cathedral were replaced by the contrasting reality of a cub whose constant crying and demands taxed his parents to their breaking point, not just for this night but for the next few years. But as they installed the cub monitor and were enjoying just a moment's peace, Caleb looked into his wife's eyes and could see their beautiful golden glow. "The world he'll live is a fixer-upper. But if he's anything like us, he'll find out the answers," Caleb whispered so as to not the wake the cub they had spent many hours trying to coax to sleep. For a brief and serene moment, in this nasty world filled with trouble, pain, and strife, the two- now, three- were now in a sanctuary. 5915 Davidson Place, Virgil, Texas was a safe place and the two would do their very best to raise their cub to be big and strong, the two thought as they joined paws once more. Because their dream had a name, Daniel after Caleb's father and that name told quite an interesting story. Caleb and Jane knew who they were- they were the dream operators.
WIth acknowledgement to the genius of David Byrne and his "True Stories".