Lauren--Part Six

Splog # 24

Six

   Lauren began to wonder if it was possible that she had fallen asleep at some point on the hillside and that all the strange things that were happening were part of some elaborate dream. Maybe she had been more tired than she had realized, when she lay back after hopping. She had seen the star, started thinking about what she would like to wish for and then fallen asleep. Maybe she had even rushed home after making her wish and gone straight to bed. And now her wish was coming true in a dream. Either way, it was a fairly interesting dream, so she settled back in the chair and waited to see what would happen next.

   Rolling slowly along the path, she reasoned that she was definitely moving uphill. She could feel the slight incline in her body now that she had let herself relax into the chair. The path seemed to be making a smooth spiral as it climbed. She sensed a slight curve to the left that didn't vary, so she knew she was moving around the hill and, if this kept up, she would end up at the top. That was where her house was, so either of two things would then happen. If she was awake, she'd be at home and all the strangeness of the night would be over. She could show her parents the strange chair on wheels and ask them about the path that hadn't been there before. Of course, if she was dreaming, there were endless possibilities of what might happen, even that she would merely wake up.

   So the chair rolled on and Lauren listened to the music and looked out into the darkness. But it didn't seem as dark as it had before. She assumed her eyes must be growing accustomed to the lack of light and tried to see if she could make anything out. She didn't see any forms of trees or bushes as she was expecting. But the darkness on her right seemed to be becoming less dark than the darkness on her left. And the darkness above her was a little brighter than the darkness underneath her. Well, that was easy to account for. At her left was the hill she was going around and underneath her was the ground she was riding upon. Above her and to her right would be mainly the air and the sky. The hill and ground were a large shadow. So the sky was becoming lighter. Was the sun rising? But it wasn't even the middle of the night yet. The sun had gone down not much more than an hour ago by her reckoning. But who could impose logic on a dream? So she enjoyed her ride and waited for it to get light enough to make out her surroundings.

   Since there wasn't much to see at the moment, she closed her eyes and listened to the music and luxuriated in the sensation of the smooth curving ascent. With her eyes closed, she started to drift off to sleep but, when she realized what was happening, she slowly opened them and smiled. It seemed a waste to fall asleep in a dream. Especially such an unusual one as this was turning out to be. She looked around a little but there was still nothing to see. She brought her hands up to her face. They were shadows without details of line or color. She looked down at herself but her body and the chair had merged in the dim light with only a slight hint of where one left off and the other began. So again she closed her eyes and listened to the music.

   And now the music seemed to be a little louder and clearer. And she realized there was another sound behind it. A long kind of whisper that got louder and softer at fairly regular intervals though there were slight variations. It seemed to be separate from the music, with a rhythm that didn't match in any way. Again, she opened her eyes. The light was growing brighter. She still couldn't perceive anything around her but, when she looked down, she could see her body resting in the chair. She could see her hands on the armrests. She could see her red sleeveless shirt and her red and white shorts. She could see the sandals on her feet that she always took off when she wanted to run through the grass. She also noticed that the shadow on her left didn't go up very high. That must mean that she was almost at the top of the hill.

   Now things seemed to be becoming more visible rather quickly. And the hill that she was seeing in the light was nothing like the hill that had disappeared from her view into the darkness. This hill wasn't a hill of earth and grass and trees and bushes and flowers.