There is no Black Dog

There is no black dog hunting at my heels.

But there is a black fog that descends and wraps itself around me. It shrouds me and blinds me and convinces me that there is nothing in front of me, that there is nobody beside me, that there is no choice but to stand still, staring at the nothing forever.

But there is no black dog.

There is a black bat, a giant beast whose leathery wings are beating above me and blotting out the sun so that everything is cold and everything is grey and colour is drained from the world until I grow sick of looking at it and too tired to keep walking into it and I must crawl back inside to stay warm.

But there is no black dog.

There is a black dragon, whose hot breath scorches the back of my neck and reminds me that life is fear and pain and I have to keep running and running and running from it because the dragon will never, ever, leave me, and stopping for even a moment to draw breath will see me burn.

But no black dog.

But there is a black snake, who coils slowly around my body and pins my arms to my sides and whispers in my ear that everything I have thought is true, that I am as trapped as I feel, that I am being crushed bone by bone and I will never breathe again and that all this has come to pass because in the deep drowned stretches of the night, when I decide that everything I am is less than nothing and the betterment of the world depends only on my departure…all this has come to pass because when I decide that, I am right, and the snake visits to promise me this, and to squeeze me. For my own good.

But there is no black dog.

I wish there was.