Ralph's Dream

 

            Ralph doesn’t have bad dreams, but he sure has some busy ones. And when Ralph has a busy dream, why, it shakes his whole world. He mutters in his sleep, asking questions that he can’t quite get out right. He thrashes. He throws off the heavy quilt, gasps and sits up.
            Looking at him sitting there, Ramona pulled the quilt more tightly around her throat, shut her eyes again, and said, “You may as well go figure it out. You’ve been working on it all night, Baby.”
            Ralph put his hands on his knees, and took a big breath, still waking. He could see light creeping in around the door built into the cave opening. He wasn’t sure if it was daylight, very early, or moonlight. It was just a little dim line around the door. Just following the line with his eyes started to put him back into dream mode.
            Half remembered questions tugged at him.
            So, he stood up. It’s hard to sleep standing up. He looked around the cave at his sleeping world. There was nothing but even breathing. Ramona’s, the kids’, and two cat’s light breaths.
            He slipped outside, closing the door very carefully. It had been early daylight leaking around the door. Soon it would be dawn.
            If Ralph’s dream had a title, it might be “Visitors From Elsewhere.”
            So, what was the big question, the big bothersome deal?
            It’s not like Ralph didn’t know of any visitors from elsewhere. There was Mak, of course, whom he took a very instructive ride with one time. Time, indeed, being the essence of that trip.
            Still musing, Ralph stepped over to the fire circle. He saw some coals still red among the ashes. He threw in a couple of small pieces of windfall which were stacked nearby. Some smoke began to drift toward the sky. He took a seat on one of those logs, still feeling like what he had been dreaming didn’t make sense in daytime language. He couldn’t seem to say it to himself.
            Suddenly, as he sat, Maeve dropped down out of the sky, silently for once. She held something in her beak. She set it down on the ground in front of his feet. It was a golden coin.
            “Hey, Boss. Look! That kid missed one, or dropped one,” she said, in a Raven whisper.
            “What in the world, Maeve? You show up with a coin before dawn? What have you been up to?” said Ralph.
            “Oh, just flying around. I passed over the river and I saw it shining,” said Maeve. “I had to dive for it too!”
            “How could it be shining? It’s practically dark. Weird,” said Ralph.
            “I don’t know! It looked shiny to me! Ralph why are you up so early?” said Maeve.
            Since neither one of them had a pocket, they just left the golden coin lying on the ground.
            “A dream woke me up, so I came out here to think,” he told her.
            “Mhm. Evermore,” she said, regarding him with one sharp black eye. “What was the dream about?”
            “Size had something to do with it. But it just didn’t seem to work. There were machines. Not human. And they had people in them, but they were too small for anybody!” he said.
            “Do dreams have to make sense, Boss?” she said.
            “No. Some are just silly. But this one hung around all night,” said Ralph.
            “You’ll figure it out. You always do,” said Maeve.
            They both listened as Ramona stepped out of the cave and shut the door gently behind herself. She sat down beside Ralph.
            “What are you two up to?” said Ramona. “Secrets? Mysteries?”
            “You could say that,” said Ralph. Maeve giggled. Ravens do giggle.
            “OK,” she said, and began building up  her fire. She often made soup for breakfast. Everybody liked it, and it was easy. She made fish soup, and a pot of coffee while they were all sitting around waiting for the sun to rise. Ramona and Ralph and Maeve had breakfast. The kids would show up with the cats later, and that was fine.
            The sun did rise. And as shafts of light came down near the fire, Ralph was watching dust motes move in the air, following currents caused by the heat of the fire, mixed with cool air, and then the heat of the sun.
            As he focused on the dust motes, he saw that each one had a rainbow shining on it. He realized that he had never seen this before, though it happens all the time, if one is looking carefully.
            He saw that each one could be a world, a ship, a person, a star, that size didn’t matter, as size was purely a local matter. And it was adjustable!
            His brown eyes sparkled with pure happiness. He got it.
            As he watched, one of the tiny specks shone with a blue light. This caught his eye, as it was different. It seemed to be somewhat larger than the others also. Yes! It was larger! And it kept growing.
            Before his eyes, it grew to the size of a turkey egg. It was actually shaped like a turkey egg. It was shiny blue, suspended in the air before Ralph’s face. It stayed in position. Then it grew larger.
            It looked like a shiny light blue ovoid, but more complicated than it had looked before. Finally, Ramona and Maeve noticed it there. They watched silently, to see what Ralph would do.
            The thing was getting pretty big, maybe like a river boulder, one of those big erratic ones. Still it hung there in the air. There was a little subliminal buzz to it now.
            “What do you need,” said Ralph. He said it aloud, but he was thinking it pretty hard too. He could see that someone had worked hard to come and see them there that morning and that they probably had a good reason to do so.
            “Gold.” The thought came to Ralph. “We need gold. The ship is hungry. Do you have gold? We must find some gold.”
            “Yes,” said Ralph. “We have some gold here. Not much. Just one old human coin, stolen, lost and then found. But you can have it. How shall I give it to you?” asked Ralph.
            A small hatch slid open on the said facing Ralph.
            “We shall be in your debt. Put it in the space which has opened. The ship will live now, and we will return home,” said the occupant of the shiny blue ship. “May the Maker of All grant you peace.”
            So Ralph picked up the old human coin and gave it to the Visitors from Elsewhere.
            As all three watched the ship shrank by stages again, until it was just a blue dust mote. Then it was entirely gone.
            All three looked at each other without a word to say. Even Maeve was silent. This would take some time and consideration.
            Finally, Twigg and Cherry came out with Berry and Bob, and they were all four hungry. So they had bowls of fish soup too, and some wild blackberries, which were in season.
            Ralph was just pleased at how well the whole thing had gone, and that his dream made perfect sense now.

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