The Dreamer

She always knew she was different from everyone else. People around her were automatically set to move away even when all she did was enter a room full of people. The conversations would turn subdued, and everyone would steal furtive glances at her. She didn't think she was all that special or noteworthy, but apparently, everyone around her thought she was. She had developed an appreciation for what the women in Salem during the Witch Trials must have felt like. Not that she was a witch.

No, she was far more than that. She was extraordinary beyond anyone's imagination. She was tiny, standing only five-foot-three inches, and weighed about 120 pounds. Her hair was auburn-colored, and she kept it cut short. She didn't have bangs. She tried that style once, and they annoyed the hell out her. They were so inconvenient, she woke up one morning, and they were gone, and the hairstyle in their place appealed to her. She always had that unique ability to want to change something as she was preparing for bed, and in the morning, the change would be effected.

The day started with an interesting twist. She was thinking about having bagels and lox for breakfast before she went to bed, and when she woke up, there were bagels alright. There was also a whole fresh salmon sitting right next to them.

"Wow. I must not have been specific enough," she thought. After shrugging it off and wrapping the salmon and putting it into the freezer, she dug out the cream cheese and prepared her bagels while her instant coffee was turning in the microwave. Finishing her breakfast, she went to throw some clothes on and headed out to work.

She worked in a pet store a few blocks away in her small town. Everyone knew everybody (and what they were doing), which is why most people wouldn't look at her or give her the time of day. Everyone, except for small children and animals, seemed to like her. This morning was no exception, except for the fact she felt something was off today. She had had that feeling before, but never as strong as today. Shrugging her shoulders and watching her breath lightly mist in the dry and cooler autumn air, she made her way to the shop without another thought about it.

She was greeted with a nod and a murmured "Good morning" from the owner as she opened the door with the bell on the spring jingling from the top of the doorway.

"Good morning," she replied quietly. She took off her light coat and hung it on the usual hook in the small and warm rustic break room. Grabbing another cup of coffee from the half-full pot and cupping it between her slightly red, cold hands, she went behind the counter and prepared to begin her day.

The day started just like every other day. The later hours of the morning began to prove to be not quite so ordinary. The owner asked her to go and sweep the sidewalk clean, reminding her again to not sweep the dirt onto someone else's sidewalk. She had never done this, and for some reason, the daily reminder began to annoy her. She thought it would be funny if it wound up on the owner's desk. She finished sweeping and went back in to put the broom away. She had carefully picked everything up in the dustpan, emptied it into a plastic garbage bag, and deposited the debris in their small dumpster to be hauled away. As she put the broom away and went to go back to the store counter, she heard her boss yell at her to come into his office. She went wondering what made him so vocal, and as she entered his office, her eyes widened, half in shock half in humor, as there on the desk was the small pile of dirt and debris she was sure she had put into the dumpster. As the owner reminded her again that he was the only one in town who was willing to give her a job, and if this was a joke it wasn't funny, and he ought to dock her an hour's pay for pulling such a stupid stunt, and on, and on, she was wondering how the hell the dirt made it to the desk from the dumpster. She got it all cleaned up, leaving the owner reminding her of all her other faults and how "good" he was to her, and headed out to the dumpster. The dirt was not in it. It was curious, and without thinking about it, she put the trash back into the dumpster, walked back to the rear of the store and before stepping back inside, ran back to the dumpster to check if the dirt was still there. Lifting the cover and seeing that it was, she felt satisfied and headed back into the store returning to the counter. Then the owner came out to the front in full voice berating her and telling her she was fired. When she looked up at him, she was torn between laughing and groaning. There stood the owner with dirt on his head and falling down his back as he shook his fist and his head at her. She was so dumbfounded and confused; she just ran out of the store into the street.

She ran down the street on the sidewalk, brushing and bumping through the thin crowd until she had come close to the other end of town. There was a park with a small river running through it, and it was here she came when she needed to be comforted by the sound of the running water and the breeze through the leaves on the trees. The leaves were beginning to turn color with the advance of autumn, and it was a beautiful sight to behold. It made her breath catch in her throat when she viewed it as she was approaching. The colors seemed much more vivid than she remembered seeing them even in full color. The grass was greener; everything in the park was just so vibrant and alive. She huddled herself, wrapping her arms around her for warmth as she slid down the trunk of her favorite tree to settle on the soft grass growing between two great roots that cradled her position, so she could sit comfortably there for hours and never fatigue or get sore.

As she expected, the lone sheriff drove up to the entrance to the park about an hour later, and as he sauntered over to her, she began wondering if he was there to arrest her and throw her in jail. He approached, tipped his Stetson, and asked how she was doing. She replied with, "I'm fine, thank you," in a minuscule voice trying desperately not to let him know she was looking for an escape if he reached for her.

He squatted his six-foot-plus dad-bod down next to her, plucking a particularly long blade of grass from the lawn and putting it into his mouth sticking out the right side and asked her,"What happened at the store? The old man said he doesn't know how it happened, but he found dirt from the sidewalk on his desk twice this morning. Funny thing is, after you cleaned it up the first time he was working hunkered over his desk when it came out of thin air to land on the back of his head and the desk. Can you explain how that might have happened, to me?"

As she huddled there, frightened, with her knees drawn up to her chin, she racked her brain as to how that happened. For things like this to occur overnight was nothing new to her. She had never been able to make things "happen" during the day. Up until now, she didn't believe it possible. But, then again, she thought today was a little wonky.

She looked the sheriff square in the eye and with as much courage and calm as she could muster said, "I have no idea sheriff. I wasn't anywhere near the office when these events occurred. You can ask the old man yourself. Both times I was in the front behind the counter when he yelled at me."

The sheriff took a grim look and said, "Yeah, the old man told me as much. But you have to admit, you have a peculiar reputation around here, and people always love to gossip, so as far as he is concerned, he thinks you 'witched on him,' or so he thinks."

"Sheriff, I am not a witch. You can search my place, and you'll find nothing 'witchy' in it. I have no idea how this happened once, let alone twice."

"Well, I could take you down to the station and hold you until we got to the bottom of this. But I don't think this is necessary right now. Just don't go nowhere and be findable if I need to ask you some more questions."

With that, the sheriff stood, cussing under his breath for squatting so long as his ankles, knees, and hip joints all seemed to pop in order as he stood up. He tilted his hat to her and headed back to his vehicle.

After he left, she couldn't move; she was shaking so much. It wasn't the cooler air, it was the encounter with the sheriff and the veiled warning that he was letting her off easy, for now. It was close to dark when she decided she needed to head home. She rose from her position between the roots feeling calm and not so chilled after all. She was taking her first steps to leave the park when she heard a rabble-rousing noise from up the street, sounding like it was heading her way. There was an awful lot of high-pitched and lower toned angry voices approaching and as they got closer, she could hear words like "witch" and "she should have been run out of town long ago."

Now very frightened, she ran back to the tree and made herself as small as she could behind it. As she tried to make herself smaller with her eyes tightly closed and her hands over her ears, she began to notice she could hear and see everything going on beyond the tree and behind her. She could see the people with their flashlights and makeshift restraints coming toward the park. She could also see the gathering of the local wildlife and all the stray dogs and cats gathering behind her. She was kind of curious about this until it dawned on her she had always loved animals of all types, and whenever a stray animal crossed her path, she would coax it home, give it a bath, do a quick check over, feed them, and then look for either their owners or a new home for them. Every stray she had done this for was never sent back out into the street, and they all lived to a ripe old and healthy age. She sensed they were here for her now in her time of need.

As the crowd continued approaching, after stopping now and again to settle a minor point of dispute before they continued, she could see a disaster coming that would take out about a third of the crowd if not more.

She saw up the road, behind the crowd, a logging truck coming into town, and she knew the tie-down chains were coming loose on the passenger side of the truck. She saw the tie-downs part as the rig approached the crowd and watched in horror as the enormous logs rolled off the truck's flatbed and into the group. Time was wasting.

Frightened for the safety of the mob, she burst from her hiding spot behind the tree and ran toward the street as the truck lights shined into the town and onto the crowd.

The truck was doing the speed limit and did not seem to pose any threat to the crowd, so they tucked in a little closer off the street and resumed their trek to the park.

As the crowd/mob came even with the entrance to the park, she could sense the chains were about to give. The crowd saw her as she stretched her arms up and out from her body with her fingers splayed and a look of extreme strain on her face as the truck drove by without catastrophe. As the log truck kept going, the crossroads stoplight up the street turned red. Thinking she had been imagining the whole event, she threw her arms down in exhaustion and as she did the chains snapped and came thundering off the truck, destroying the town's welcome sign and taking out the pole for the lights and a telephone pole, darkening the entire village.

The crowd became silent at witnessing this happen. Then they all turned to face her and began slowly to thank her and announce they were all wrong about her, realizing she threw her hands up as the truck drew even with them and when she dropped her hands the logs crashed off the truck bed.

Some were going on about how she was blessed by the Lord and saved them from this calamity, while others were bragging they knew all along she was alright. Her former boss stood at the forefront, looking at his shoes and scuffing them in the dirt with his hands behind his back.

As they approached her with the changed intent of thanking her, she backed away into the park toward her tree. The animals had moved forward between her and the tree and let her safely pass through closing ranks, facing the crowd as she did so. She ran behind the tree, embracing it while the animals began to make it clear no one was going to pass. As the crowd tried several ways to get past the animals, she was behind the tree, wishing for a way out of there that wasn't through the river behind her.

Eventually, the crowd was able to disperse the animals, or so they thought, as the animals had completed their apparent mission and were heading back into the wilds.

When the leaders of the crowd, not including her former boss, got to the tree, she was nowhere to be found. All that remained were her shoes. At this revelation, the crowd decided very nervously it was time to call it a night, and it was better to pretend this never happened. The prevailing thought was the wildlife had turned on her and carried her lifeless body into the woods with them.

Two weeks later, the search for her remains was called off. A memorial service was held in the town's cemetery, and everyone attended. The sheriff spoke a few words about her, and several of the more prominent people paid tribute to her as well. A month later, a granite pedestal memorial was erected at the entrance to the park with a somewhat embellished account of the events that had happened that night dedicated to the woman who nobody could recall knowing her name.

Six months later, no one even remembered why the memorial had been placed there.

It described a momentous event that had happened on the spot, and since no one in the town wanted to be thought of as being daft, the memorial was left in place.

On the day of the event, up in the ancient monastery on Skellig Michael, a craggy, windblown, sea-tortured, and an enormous piece of rock jutting out of the Irish Sea off the southeast coast of Ireland, a man was trudging up a rocky trail to a cloister of an ancient monastery abandoned hundreds of years before. Upon reaching the monastery, he followed the cryptic directions he had received and found the monastic cell he was instructed to locate. He was surprised to see a warm light coming from the open window. As he stepped into the light in the small doorway, he saw a woman in monk's robes writing with a quill pen at a small table in the corner of the cell. Looking around, he spied a simple cot with blankets and another smaller table with a water pitcher and a clay mug on it. When he looked back to the woman, she had finished her writing. Laying down the quill, she turned and faced the intruder, rubbing her hands through her short auburn hair and letting out a huge sigh said to him, "You're late. But that's okay." Then she stood the full height of her five-foot-three-inch frame, and seemingly floating her steps across the floor to him, took his hand leading him to the table and said quietly, "Here is where dreams come true."