The Dream
By Westel
"Mama, do you ever think about things you know can't be real, but in your dreams they are?"
"Mercy, child, how you go on sometimes, I declare. I don't understand when you get into these moods. Look at that – you haven't finished peeling those potatoes, and your pa due home any minute, now! Best you forget those foolish ideas and help me get supper."
The small, thin girl of thirteen smothered a smile and tackled the potatoes, content at least in her own private thoughts. She looked out the open window at the hastening twilight, the sun casting one last red shaft through the trees before sinking behind the purple hills. Soon it would be dark, her father would be home, and they would share their simple meal together, the kerosene lamp cheerfully casting its glow over the plank table.
The child enjoyed those quiet evenings as only a daughter of loving, hard-working parents could do. She relished their long talks, the pine-resin popping in the fireplace and perfuming the rustic room, the methodical in-and-out motion of needles – her mother's on a flying geese quilt, hers on a cross-stitch sampler – while her father read to them by candlelight.
There was only the last design to finish now, alphabets in upper and lower cases completed, three corners filled in. She leaned back against the settle and looked through the nine-pane window to view the glittering stars beyond, pristine in a soft, blue-black sky. The object of her dreams came to mind, and she smiled to herself as she planned how she would place it forever in her view on that plain piece of muslin…
Two nights later, it was done. Her mother admired her work, amused at the strange design in the corner, but appreciating the even stitches nonetheless.
The girl was satisfied. She would keep it all her life, to remind her of the dreams of far away places: other worlds, other people, other times. She was satisfied, because she knew some day someone would see her simple cross-stitch and they would understand how she felt – right now – as she looked up at the night.
OoOoO
The communications officer browsed through the dusty antique shop, lifting old textiles with delicate fingers, admiring their centuries-old sturdiness and the long-dead artisans' handiwork.
The captain had convinced her to come with him on one of his rare visits home, and Uhura had been immersed in Iowan farm culture, a society both ultramodern agriculturally and hundreds of years old in its deep-rooted pioneer traditions. During her two-week stay she came upon many such shops as these, and found she had a taste for collecting handiwork, especially if it was signed and dated.
She yawned and stretched, realizing Jim Kirk was waiting to escort her back to his mother's for their last home-cooked meal before returning to the Enterprise, and turned reluctantly to go.
A gleam of dusk-light broke through a crack in the wall and drew her eye to a piece of cloth half-covered by an old book. She bent closer to look, lifting the book carefully, and gasped with surprise at her find. As she held the cross-stitch up to the light, she shook her head in wonder as a tear slid down her cheek.
It was a typical sampler. Two different alphabets worked with childish delight, a log cabin, a mother and father figure by the door. Off to the side was a girl, pointing to the upper right hand corner where, in a dark blue background pierced with pin-point stars, sailed a grey-disked vessel with three stately projections: one below, two above.
And at the bottom of the sampler were these words:
Rebecca Anne Lowry, her Work
September 25, 1872
To her who understands the dream…
And she who understood, after four centuries of waiting, gathered the precious bit of cloth to her and went to find the shopkeeper.
End