Saturday, December 04, 2010

Something New

Long ago when the Earth was green and lush there was a small village high up in the mountains and in the village there lived a very old man. He'd lived there all his life and he had a very long and complicated name that no one could remember. He couldn't remember it himself very well.

So after a while people just started calling him Friend. He liked it. It was simple and uncomplicated and he was an uncomplicated person himself so he took the name on as his own.

Friend was very unusual in his village. He had the ability to dream and whatever he dreamt came true but it didn't happen in the way he expected.

He couldn't ask for things to happen and have them happen in his dreams, he had tried. It just happened when it happened and always in every dream with people whose faces he had never seen before.

He kept the dream experience to himself because he was worried about what people might think. And yet he treasured those dreams because he felt that something good always came out of it, for his dreams always had happy endings and frequently they were just as happy all the way through the dream.

He always knew when he was going to have a dream like that because when he was very drowsy, just before he went to sleep he would get this big smile on his face and he knew just for a few seconds before he fell deeply asleep that he was going to have a dream that would come true.

He didn't always know where it came true but sometimes travelers would pass through the village and tell stories of happenings in other villages both near and far and he often heard that one of his dreams came true nearby or sometimes far away.

One year Friend dreamt that little white bits of stuff were going to fall from the sky and cover the land - and the land had always been green of course - and then all the land would be covered and look white and everyone would be very happy. He woke up smiling and he thought, "What on earth can that be?"

Several months later a traveler that came through the village told the people a surprising story of these strange amazing little bits of stuff that fell out of the sky and was white and covered all the mountains and a village far, far away and there was a feeling with it. It was cold.

"Cold", murmured some of the people. They asked each other, "What is that?" And none of the people knew.

The traveler said that it was very like the breezes that would come through the mountain passes and would sometimes cause the people to wrap light shawls around them.

"Oh, oh yes," many of the people said, "We know now." For you see, the village was very high up but it was in a special place that never got very cold. It was always warm and comfortable except for those few breezy moments.

Listening to the story Friend thought to himself, "I would like to see this white stuff that falls out of the sky and is cold. I wonder if that could ever happen."

That night as he was sinking deeper into sleep and started to smile, he had a dream of a high place in the mountains that was white and people wore heavy clothes but they looked very happy and cheerful. When he woke up he was smiling as always though there was something different about the faces of the people this time. This was the first time he could ever remember that he recognized the peoples faces. They were all people that he knew!

He couldn't see the buildings very well in the dream, he could never really remember that too well but all the faces that he saw of the people who were all bundled up in these heavy clothes - they were all people he knew in his own village and he wondered what that meant.

This time Friend knew he just had to tell someone about this so he decided to tell some of his best friends whose faces he remembered were in the dream.

And of course, you know how it is with everyone. People like to know what's happening. So they told their friends and their friends told their friends and pretty soon everybody in the village knew about it and they all thought, "What fun, I wonder what that white is" and other questions like that. And everyone was excited that Friend could do this and no one thought he was strange or odd because he had dreams that came true.

Well it was coming on towards November and people started noticing way up high on the tops of the mountains that white was appearing and they didn't know what that was and they asked Friend, "What is that? Does that look like the white you saw in your dream?" He said, "Yes, it looks very much like that."

As it got further on through November the white covered all the mountain tops and was getting closer to the village and then even closer so by the time December started the white was almost at the village itself and several of the people climbed up the mountain a ways and discovered that the white was indeed cold and that it made everything glisten and sparkle and was so beautiful.

Towards the end of December at a time when the people celebrated many different holidays - such as Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and special Sun and Moon days the white covered the whole village and made everything beautiful and because the people had time to see the white coming and knew it was cold they were able to make warm clothes.

They dressed in their warmest clothes and went out and enjoyed the white and enjoyed the cold. They wanted to enjoy it because they had a feeling it wasn't going to last all year since it had just shown up in November.

The people were grateful for the white and they said how grateful they were because it made everything look so beautiful and it was a nice change from the way things usually were.

Thereafter in the years that followed right around November and December the white came and offered its unusual change of cold and beauty and the people were able to enjoy happy holidays and of course a white Christmas.

Happy Holidays to you all.

2 comments:

Kirsten K said...

I finally read this to my younger Niece over the phone just the other day and she loved it. And she even guessed what it was about! I won't tell as to not give it away. I LOVED reading this to her. Thank you! Goodlife

Robert Shapiro said...

Hi Kirsten,

Glad the story session went well :)

Goodlife