The Dream

Carrie Wells stood in the backyard of their Wyoming farmhouse and smiled as she listened to the excited whoops and shouts that came from her two youngest sons.  It was a beautiful, hot summer day, and they were cooling off in the swimming hole, a very deep pool of always-cold water in the creek that flowed a few yards away.  Suddenly, the tone of their voices changed from one of excitement to one of panic.

"Tommy!  Tommy!" the younger one screamed.

Carrie ran as fast as she could toward the creek.  When she was only a few feet away from the bank, she saw Tommy struggling, fighting to regain the surface of the water.  One arm broke through and reached upward.  Then, as she watched in wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror, it disappeared again for the last time.

Carrie jerked awake with heart pounding and tears streaming down her cheeks.  It took a moment for her to realize that she was not outside in the summer sunshine, but in her own bed.  That same nightmare - again! 

With a glance at her sleeping husband, Jim, she eased out of bed and pulled on her heavy, woolen robe.  Quietly, on slippered feet, she descended the stairway and made her way through the dark, silent house and into the kitchen. 

Gripping the edge of the sink, she gazed out of the window at the moonlit, snow-covered meadows that drifted away to the distant mountains, and tried to calm her pounding pulse.  Why was she having this same dream, time after time?  The bubbling creek was silent now beneath the snow-covered ice.  Why did the dream bring such feelings of dread?  Generations of Jim's family had swum in those same waters and no harm had ever come to them.

She tried to force the horrifying images from her mind, but she could not seem to get rid of the fear - no, panic - that it brought.  Her pulse continued to race.  If only she could talk to someone who might understand how the dream made her feel, maybe it would help.  But there was no one.  The first time she'd had the dream, she mentioned her concern about it to Jim.

"Now, Mother," he had said in that same voice he used to reason with a balky child, "it was just a dream.  A real nightmare maybe, but a dream, still the same.  We've always swum in that creek.  Don't be such a worrier."

So she suffered in silence while the dream continued to torment her.  Outside, the moonlight sparkled on the new-fallen snow.  The creek was still there, sleeping beneath its glistening blanket.  Was she just worrying about nothing?  Yet this dream didn't feel the same as most of her other ones.  It seemed so real.


The chill of the sleeping house seeped through her robe and she shivered.  "Please, God," she whispered.  "Help me to understand."

Heaving a deep sigh, she turned away from the window and, with dragging footsteps, crossed the house and climbed the stairs to her bed.


As the weeks slid into months, the winter snows gave way to the deep mud that accompanied the spring thaw.  The sun shone with increased vigor, drying out the mud, and the crops were planted.  Still the dream periodically interrupted her sleep and she continued to worry.

One afternoon in early June, when the summer sun was blazing down, the two younger kids ran into the house. 

"We want to go swimming!" they demanded.

Carrie felt her heart jump into her throat. She couldn't tell them about her fears.  What kind of excuse would they understand?  "The water's not warm enough yet," she said with a frown.  "You'd catch your death of pneumonia."

"But we want to go.  Pleeease!"

Slowly, she shook her head.  "It's too early.  Wait until later in the summer."


The days continued to warm and the children continued to pester her to allow them to go swimming.  She grasped for any excuse to keep them away from the creek.

"It's too close to suppertime."

"You haven't gathered the eggs and fed the pigs yet, have you?"

One evening at the supper table, they enlisted their father's support.

"We want to go swimming, Pa, and Ma won't let us.  Can we go?  Can we?"

Carrie felt herself blush as Jim's eyes searched her face, a puzzled frown wrinkling his tanned brow.  Did he remember about the dream?  Did he still think she was being foolish?

"Well," he said slowly,  "I don't see any reason why you shouldn't . . ."

"But, Jim . . ." Carrie started to protest, then stopped short.  Maybe she was being foolish.  The children enjoyed swimming so much.  Did she have the right to let her fears interfere with their having a good time?  "I guess," she said with a slight smile at the anxious kids, "I guess you can go tomorrow afternoon - after your chores are done."

The summer days marched swiftly past.  The kids spent their time doing their individual chores and spending hours swimming in the creek.  Carrie cooked their meals, cleaned the house, did the laundry, tended the kitchen garden, then harvested and preserved the produce.  Each evening the entire family gathered around the table, all intact, and the horrible nightmare slipped from Carrie's mind.


One afternoon in the middle of August, Carrie stood at the kitchen sink finishing up the dishes from their mid-day meal.  Through the open window she could hear the song of a nearby meadowlark and the happy shouts of her children playing in the creek.  She hung up her dishtowel and picked up a basket from the table beside the backdoor.  Might as well go ahead and pick some vegetables for supper, she thought, pushing through the screen door and letting it bang shut behind her.

She crossed the back porch and paused, listening to the bird's song and inhaling the scent of the flowers planted alongside the house.  Suddenly the bright sunlight seemed to waver and the scene she was viewing seemed to pulsate back and forth - toward her, then away again.  She felt dizzy and was sure that she had been in this exact moment sometime before now.  Then the dream flashed through her mind.

"Oh, my God, no!" she breathed, dropping her basket and running toward the creek.  She was nearing the bank when she heard her youngest son's panicked voice.

"Tommy!  Tommy!"

Before her, she saw her child struggling helplessly in the water.  His arm broke the surface.  Dropping to her knees, she reached down and grasped his hand.  With a desperate heave, she pulled him from the water and up over the embankment.

"Oh, thank God!  Thank God!" she cried over and over, as she clasped him to her breast and rocked him back and forth with tears flowing down her face.  "Thank you, God," she murmured against his dripping hair, "for the dream."