Invisibles.

Gustavo led the charge of the invisibles last week. Hours of barking at unseen forces outside the dogpen at work. When I walk him up on top of the hill, to get a view of the land and hopefully exorcise whatever it was that was terrorizing him, his ears pin back, a look of horror swept over his face, and a new round of screaming begins. This goes on for a few days.

When he gets like this, we've never been able to figure out what he sees. His apparitions come and go. Some visionaries see things on burnt tortillas or the gnaw marks in damp sheetrock, for Gustavo they flutter by in the breeze. When he sees the spirits in the yard, I send Otterpop outside with him, and she boldly goes where he can't due to the brain freeze that goes along with spectral paralysis. She'll bark a while with him, then charge into the bushes where his monster might be hiding. Nothing. She dives back into the daisy bush. I go out myself. We point at stuff, touch things, to see if that's what has him upset.

"Is it the puddle, little buddy? Are you afraid of the puddle?" I touch some water, but his eyes stare right through me. Maybe it's the flower pot that's fallen over. I knock on it with my knuckes, so he he can see it's made of clay and substance and isn't a vapor, playing shit tricks with his brain.

"The flowerpot? Gooey? Look!"

Otterpop slams into the flower pot head first. She ain't afraid of no flower pot. Eventually she tires of his spookies and goes inside. Gustavo keeps recoiling in horror at what only he can see. Backing up, and barking until I carry him back inside.

Since his spookies began again last week, Japan exploded in multiple disasters all at once. Earthquake led to tsunami led to nuclear meltdown. He predicted it a day before it happened. And then we got some tsunami here. And bone zombies secretly ravaged the cadaver bone graft they attached into the tooth section of my skull. And my facebook account got hacked. And someone swept my floor. Although that could have been my husband.

So who am I to say that invisible forces aren't out there? I suppose it's lucky I have someone around who can see them. Like having our own leprechaun that can predict the weather or what the soup of the day is. Ruby has always been plagued with witches that speak mystery to her in tongues. Gustavo's don't talk though. They just reveal something to him, and I think it's a frightening burden to live with.