The Dream Road Home

When I started listening, they stopped. It wasn’t because they didn’t want me to hear – what they were saying didn’t amount to much – but it must have been because they weren’t really there. Strange how listening can make things disappear.

This is what happened when I was asleep.

Then something woke me.

I was thinking of Walter and Dorothy. They were standing outside together. The light was on over the front door. Then we drove over the little bridge. I thought I could hear water, but Dorothy said there hadn’t been water there for as long as she could remember. It seemed to take forever to cross the bridge.

After that the lights kept passing very close as if they were trying to tell us something. The hissing and humming were there even with my eyes closed. Even in my sleep I had to keep letting it pass until it was forgotten.

Walter was the same as when I first knew him. We must have been very young, although it didn’t seem like it at the time. We were just standing there with our mother, Whispering Grass, and whatever we looked at it could be seen.

When Jenny asked the lost kitten, “Where have you come from?” I wanted to answer for the kitten, “I come from here”. I don’t know why I am thinking of that now, but it keeps coming back to me. The little kitten thought he had come home.