My Wildest Dreams

(Exert from fiction story)




I don’t really understand average, nor do I understand ordinary. I do, however, understand poverty, isolation, guilt, depression and shame. In order to balance things out I must also admit that I have a pretty good idea what peace and tranquility are as well. Yet from all the understanding or lack there of the one thing that is most familiar with my thought process is the act of Dreaming. I have always been a big dreamer. Dreams are what have kept me going I suppose. Dreams are sometimes all one has to hold onto. And certainly dreams are the one thing noone can take away from you if you don’t let them. Dreams…mmmm.. Sweet sweet dreams. Dreams come in many shape form or fashion. It can be the ones that visit you in the dead of the night, a mere daydream in the middle of the day, or perhaps just a wish or a secret goal that you have your heart set upon. Sometimes dreams I think, dream us. I’m about to tell you a story about a dream that came true . I don’t know exactly how it happened it just did. If I never have another dream so long as I live I will take it to my grave knowing that I lived out “My Wildest Dreams.”
When I was a little girl I was somewhat of an outcast. My parents where involved in a very catastrophic religion that preached Hell, fire and brimstone more so than the love of God. I was use to going to church regularly where I saw people who were “filled with the spirit of God” running around circles in the building as if they were a stampede of wild horses. The woman always wearing long dresses had their hair pinned up in granny buns or big bee hive buns. If we were visiting another church I could always tell which lady was the pastor’s wife cause it seemed as if though a pastor’s wife always had the biggest bee hive bun I had ever seen. Life was normal with me as far as I knew, I didn’t realize I was an outcast until I started school. It seemed as though our religion took up and occupied most of our time, which is fine, when you have sound doctrine or just one guide line or set of rules to go by, unfortunately, it seemed as though the set of rules we had changed as often as the wind. First women could only wear dresses, which was fine by me, then one day we were told we couldn’t wear denimn dresses. The preacher spouted how wearing blue jean skirts was just a ploy of the devil trying to get women to wear pants. I thought it was horribly shameful when he pulled his daughter up in front of the building to set her as an example. Of course I thought she was horribly shameful anyways but I want get into that. Then one day we were told that not only could women not wear denimn but that the men’s shirt sleeves could be no shorter than their elbow. Maybe the dress code thing wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact we moved a lot. Along with the moving came a different church each time with the same atmosphere and the same hell and brimstone sermons as well as a whole new ethic of dress codes. Just when I would get one down pat we would move and the whole thing would start over. I would try to decide what it was God wanted me to wear or not to wear. I remember thinking as a small child, “Boy, God sure does worry a lot about what our clothes look like.” Well, the moving part. The fact that we moved around so much. Maybe that played a big part in me being such an outcast cause we were never settled and were often uprooted time and again. I always embraced moving though. Friends was something that was very sparce to me and each time we moved I hoped that I would find a place were I fit in. Somewere where kids at school would like me and just maybe I would have friends. Friends seemed such a big important goal to me. Why ? I don’t know. Maybe it was one of those things you learn about in psychology class about the need to belong. Whatever it was, I was always uncomfortable and I always ached to belong. Somewhere, anywhere; that is, anywhere other than where I was at any given moment in time. Anyways my story begins as a 7 year old child in the second grade on the school bus.
It was the same morning as any other nothing unusual. Mama woke my two brothers and I up early enough to eat a bowl of cereal and be dressed before she was off to work. Mike and I fought over who would get the Coco Puffs and Will of course decided he would settle that argument for us by getting them himself and letting us fight over the Frosted Flakes. Since Will was the oldest we both backed down. Will never asked for a lot from anyone. He was content to do his own thing and keep out of the fights that broke out all too often between Mike and I. It astonished both of us that he would even speak up. We decided with the encouragement of our mother that she was right, we needed to quit fighting and eat or else we were going to miss out on brekfast altogether because it was nearly time for the school bus to arrive. Finally we were fed and out the door. She rode us to the end of the trailer park were we waited on the school bus. There was a pond nearby and I could see the ducks swimming about. I was wearing my favorite outfit which I wore nearly three times a week. I was proud to be wearing it and oh how I loved it. It was a little white dress with poka dots and lace on the bottom and a pair of black shiny shoes that had bows on top. My hair was long and stringy and I felt so good when I had on this particular dress. I remember thinking how pretty the ducks were and how nice it must be to not have to wear clothes. I was always different though if I had had my rathers I would just blend in with the crowd instead of being set apart and appearing differently. The bus rolled in and Will and Mike got on ahead of me. I looked over my shoulder at the ducks as I happily hopped on. My brothers where the world to me. They were all I had besides my parents, are at least that is how I felt. Will was in such a grumpy mood that day. We got on the bus and I could hear someone playing a boom box. It was Michael Jackson singing “Beat It”. I had to ask someone who was singing because I had never heard that kind of music before in my entire life. I was brought up to believe if it were not country or gospel it was of the devil and evil to say the very least.
I sat staring out the window and I could hear someone say “Hubba Bubba”. I turned and looked back, children on the bus were picking at my brother. They were making fun of him and calling him “Hubba Bubba” because he was a husky little fellow. Mike of course jumped right in with the fun and began to pick on him also. I remember thinking how mean Mike was and how dare him to make fun of our brother, after all it was bad enough that the rest of the kids were, he didn’t need his own brother adding fuel to the fire. I kept my mouth shut though. I didn’t want anyone to pick on me or say anything ugly to me. I couldn’t handle it. I had enough to deal with just being at school. I only had one friend at school and of course well she didn’t smell the best in the world, but it sure was nice to have someone to talk to in school besides myself. I got so lonely. Tears began to stream down my face as I felt sad for my brother. I always wanted to sit on the outside of the seat and of course was always made to sit in by the window. This was one time that I was so glad that I got the chance to sit by the window. I stared out. I wanted once again to be somewhere, anywhere, anywhere but here. I missed my father, he was working out of town. I wished that he could take me to school instead of making me ride the school bus. I wished that children weren’t mean and I wished that I had at least one other pretty dress to wear so that I didn’t have to wear this one nearly every single day. Then, I wished something that I will never forget. It had such an impact on me. I thought of the ducks and how they looked swimming in the pond and they had no need of clothes. I wished I were a duck. “Poof!” At that instance I was flying. I thought I was dreaming. Surely it had to be a daydream. I was on the outside of the schoolbus and I was flying. It didn’t take the strength or the energy that I thought it would. I figured flying was strenuous work. I felt that flying was certainly like running. It was something I had thought of doing before but never figured I would have the chance to try, no, not in a million years and here I was, I was doing it ! Everyone quit picking on my brother. I could hear the children saying, “ Look at that silly duck outside the window!” “ That duck is crazy!” “Wow, did you ever see a duck fly along side of a school bus?” In that instance I caught a glance of myself in the window. I had turned into a duck ! Shock and horror filled my poor little wings and bam ! I was whacked by an on coming 18 wheeler. I felt my body fly up over the top of the truck and as though someone had knocked the wind out of me I was aching and with a bam I landed on the ground. I wanted to cry but merely just a quack quack came out of my mouth. I rolled and flopped around in the ditch wondering how I was going to explain this to my mother and further more, what if I couldn’t ? I am not certain as to how long I lay there in that ditch but I forced myself to get up. “I have to get to school.” I kept telling myself over and over. I felt completely and totally alone. My feathers were all wet and I was cold. I don’t know if I had ever been so cold in my entire life before that particular moment in time. I suppose it doesn’t matter because I have not been that cold since. I rolled over and could feel an ache in my back and my right wing was broken. I simply thought I would die right then and there and noone would know. I looked to see if my polka doted dress were muddy but apparently ducks have no need for clothing and I wasn’t wearing any. Squaking around and flopping like a duck out of water I managed to lift my head up and that is when the most oddest thing happened. I met a little old woman who looked like the real live version of Granny from Sylvester and Tweetie Bird. She even had the same little granny bun and glasses wich was nothing like the women from my church’s bee hive buns. She had a kind grandmother smile and of course a mean old cat who was no color other than black and white and she called him Tiger. She scooped me up in her arms and walked me to her car. Very lovingly placing me on her back seat while Tiger gleemed at me from the front seat. She scolded him and I must admit, Sure terror was in me, the thought of being attacked or worse yet, eaten by a CAT ! Who would have thought that the moment I left my house for school that morning I was going to have such a day? I wanted to get back home to my mother but figured that was near impossible at this instance.