Garden of Dreams

Joy looked up the road anxiously. Any moment his car would be coming down the road.

In front of her cottage she worked on the flower bed, planting each flower meticulously. As she worked on her flower garden, her mind raced with thoughts of her future, present and her dreams from the past. Her thoughts drifted back to when she was a child, in the garden by the old house, with her mother and sister, Valerie. . .


Her mother had hoed a lane open. Valerie's job was to go along and press little holes into the ground. Joy's job, since she had the smallest hands, was to drop three seeds into each of the holes that Valerie had made. Easy job but for Joy she had to be a little more creative than to just drop them into the holes. The first few holes she was really good and counted them out loud, dropping each little seed into the hole, one-two-three, next hole, one-two-three, then the next.

As she continued down the row she noticed that not only the ground was there dirt but there was this whole universe of bugs and worms. By the time she reached the fifth or sixth hole she saw a worm wiggling through a hole. She dropped to her knees to get a closer look. She wondered if she could get inside that hole, crawl along there and meet the worm family. She imagined that the worm had a mommy and a daddy and even a mean sister like Valerie. Maybe this worm was a big sister and had a baby sister worm. She had never seen a baby worm and that was something she wanted to see.

She hoped that when she grew up she would marry a real nice daddy. A daddy who would play with her children and never make them work. The daddy would give lots of kisses to his children. This daddy would never die. He would live forever and love them all. She wondered if the worm daddy had died.

"Joy, come on, we have a lot of work to do before the sun goes down," her mom reminded her.

She smiled at her mommy and continued along. Dropping a few more seeds into the next hole and the next.

One-two-three. One-two-three.

At the next hole there was this bug with all kinds of legs. Oh my goodness he had hundreds of legs. She giggled. Look at how funny he looked. He was ugly though. She was afraid that bug would come up out of the hole, crawl up her leg, onto her tummy and into her hair and she would never be able to get him out and mommy might have to brush her hair again. Ewwww she didn't want that. So she decided to skip a few holes, get away from the bug.

One-two-three. One-two-three.

Then Joy remembered a story about why she put three seeds into each hole. Mommy had told her that one seed was to grow and two were for the birds. She knew that the birds were pretty hungry and soon they would land to pick out the seeds that she put in there. She decided that she would leave a few more seeds in each hole for the birds.

She looked high into the sky and saw the birds flying up high. One day she wanted to fly high in the sky like a bird. She wanted to spread her wings and fly to another land where there were dragons and fairies, handsome princes and beautiful castles. She wanted to live in a castle and wear the pretty dresses that princesses wore. Her brother always called her his princess so she just needed a castle. She knew her castle was near, it was just over that mountain.

One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five.

On the package she could see peas. She loved peas! If on the envelope it showed peas that must mean she was planting peas. Wonder if she could eat one? She took a seed out of the bag and looked at it. It didn't really look like a pea. She looked at the package, saw the peas, she wanted some peas. Mommy wasn't looking. Valerie wasn't looking. She popped one in her mouth and chewed on it. Owww it hurt her teeth. Yuck it tasted terrible. She spit out the pieces.

She used to hate peas because she had never tried them and would refuse to eat them. Her brother once told her that peas were lost souls and for every pea she ate she saved a soul. This made her eat all her peas on her plate and she found out that same day that she loved peas.

When she grew up she wanted to have a job where she helped many people. Her mommy said that she had a kind heart and she wanted to use her heart to help other people. She just never wanted her heart to ever break. . . but if it did she knew that mommy could glue it back together like she glued her toys back together.

One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five.

Ewwww there was one of those ugly bugs with lots of legs. She dropped the seeds onto the bug and watched it curl up. It looked funny . . . but then she felt sad. She might have given it a headache. She didn't want to hurt it. She just didn't want it to crawl up her leg. . . .



A car horn sounded, startling Joy and she looked up. Pulling into her driveway was the man whose face she knew well. Her friend of friends. She dropped her tools, took off her gloves and started towards him. It was time to make some more dreams. . .