DREAM REPAIR

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

Hush child and let me tell you true … about a perfect baby just like you.

The King and Queen of Nod were delighted when Her Majesty gave birth … Princess Perfaith was everything they had ever wanted, wrapped in joy and mirth.  

The baby was wiggly pink toes to wash and soft golden hair to clean … with laughing blue eyes somewhere in between.

A twinkling smile that could frighten away even the most horrible storm … and a laugh that made the sunshine warm.  

Perfaith was watched by a dozen eyes at all odd times … even more so during nursery rhymes.

The queen was in the garden picking a feather from a rose … when the first horn blew and made her wiggle her toes.  

She rushed to where a crowd  surrounded Perfaith’s crib … “What is it?’ the Queen demanded. “I’ll have no fib!”

“There,” the old woman pointed to the beginning of a frown; “Surely no Royal smile at that place turns down.”

The queen ordered a dozen attendants with fans to the crib of doom. “Perhaps it is too warm … much too warm in this room!”

            The queen was filling a feeder in the garden and wondering why her feathered friends hadn’t come … when another cry from the nursery put her on the run.

The matron pointed to a single tear rolling down the sleeping baby’s chin … “She was fine just a bit ago when I walked in.”

Her Majesty ordered all the windows covered. “The day must be too bright for her tender young eyes … and no more noise … I’ll hear no lies.”

            Then a loud cry made everyone drop what they were doing and rush to the palace … Abby, Dick, John, Jane … George, Mike and Alice.

            The king was returning from a fox hunt when he heard the boom. “What on Earth?’ he thundered as he rushed into the room. “It must have been a bad dream,” the old woman said. “The princess isn’t quite awake … yet she’s filled with dread.”

            “There are no bad things in my kingdom, I give my trust to God. Her broken dreams will be repaired” … says the Lord of Nod!

-------2-------

The king sent soldiers into every town, village and in-betweens … searching for someone who could repair broken dreams.

They looked in boots, boats, baskets and boxes … they searched under mats, marbles, mice and foxes.

They peered in the tops of trees and in the bottom of wells … they followed flying birds and cooking smells.

Finally someone checked two paths up from Filbert Street … down a twisted alley filled with rotting meat.

 Across a broken door and down a short damp hall … under broken roof boards where the shingles fall.

Next to a webby corner where spiders dare … a sign said Vorchoose Dream Repair!

Vorchoose, the name is always spoken like a sneeze … was a frog wearing pants in the doorway breeze.

An enchanted Prince who had never been kissed … from another fairy tale - he was somehow missed.

Not too short and not too thin … he told them with a smile to hop right in.

The crooked room was short on one side and long on the other … with a chair stuck in the wall near a portrait of his mother.

Crooked stairs like shelves leaned up to the sky … with grasses, bugs and bells marked with Taylor’s dye.

They grabbed Vorchoose and tied him to a nag …. Green legs kicking from a big red bag.

He was dumped onto the floor before the angry king … while soldiers with spears formed a surrounding ring.

“You have naught to fear from sword or knife,” the king assured him … “Fix my daughter’s dreams and I’ll spare your life.”

“Before I can repair a dream I must see what is broke,” … Vorchoose explained in a frightened croak.

The king sent soldiers to bring his pile of a shop … four crooked walls with a roof on top.

Soldiers stomped their boots as he searched through the rubble ….and found a corked glass jar in the shape of a bubble.

Voorchoose took a tiny candle from a small locked box …. “I hope this is enough for it’s all that I’ve got.”

The crowd moved softly to where the tiny baby slept … some on tiptoes while others crept.

The frog lit the candle behind the jar and shown it on the place … where dreams come and go on the baby’s face.

The Queen’s lovely garden rippled into view … with butterflies, sunshine and morning dew.

A bird on a branch had just begun its song … when darkness covered the leaves like something wrong.

A shadow like claws made everyone shout …. then the flame flickered and the candle went out.

“I could almost see the thing that broke her dreams,” the Queen did shout … “How could you let the fire go out?’

“Quick, light another,” the king demanded. “Do it now or be beaten and branded!”

“I can’t,” the frog said, his voice filled with fear. “The candle’s made of wax from a large dragon’s ear!”

The king asked a wizard who was standing by …. how the candle could be replaced if one wanted to try.

The wizard looked around and scratched his bald head … and pulled a scroll from his boot before he read.

“To find a sleeping dragon with an ear filled with wax …. You must look in the mountains in the caves and the cracks.”

So the king sent Vorchoose to bring back more light. “You have just three days – so don’t sleep at night!”

The little frog hopped from the castle and into the forest … downstream from here where the people are poorest.

Past fields and farms where the money is lost … past those who stay busy no matter the cost.

By a mountain of hay a cottage looked very small. A woman had sewn a one acre blanket to cover it all.

“It took me six months to keep this hay dry… now no one will pay - not a cloud in the sky!”

The little frog didn’t know what to say …

The frog asked every town and village if they’d seen a dragon … and a man tried to squish him under the wheel of a wagon.

“Get out of the street! Be gone with you frog! There by that stream go sit on that log!”

It was just getting dark so the frog did what the man said … one day of three gone and it filled him with dread.

The night moved along; the moon crossed the sky … a fish stopped to talk as it passed him by.

“You search for a dragon, who makes fire in the air … no water to breathe so glad I’m not there.”

“Where is this place? Where I’d rather be … to repair a dream is my mission you see.”

“Follow this stream where it comes from above … a cave behind water hid in a bluff.

An old sleeping dragon, you’ll know from the snore … I’m just swimming past so I can’t tell you more.”

Verchoose thanked his finned friend but the fish had already gone … so he moved on upstream and he hopped until dawn.

The old fish was right, the frog heard the roar … of water tumbling down and a great dragon’s snore.

The frog crept into the cave all trembles and fears … but the dragon was deaf from the wax in its ears.

The frog shoveled out wax plugs counted ten … then did the next ear just to show him a friend.

The wax plugs all floated down the stream just like boats … when a she dragon came with her claws filled with goats.

She had a loud grinding voice and her words never stopped ….

The old dragon woke up - turned its head with a nod … “I heard you come home dear - and that’s rather odd!”

The frog dove in the fast moving water and swam for his life … while the two dragons breathed flames and lit up the night.

Water moves very fast but dragon wings don’t tire …when Frog got back to Nod the realm was on fire.

The frog was just pulling the wax plugs out of the water when the king arrived with his knights … “we’re at war with the dragons now everyone must fight!”

With the roaring of flames the dragon landed there too … and he chased Frog away from the dragon ear goo.

The old dragon pointed to his mate in the air … “I do love her dearly so do take a care.”

“I’ll take back my wax - I do love my naps … with no way of hearing her nagging and yaps.”

As the dragon seized the wet wax to lift it away … the frog remembered the one acre blanket that covered the hay.

“Would not a huge pillow not muffle the sound … and give your head comfort not hard stony ground?”

And the dragon bent his head and considered ….

The king bought the hay pillow and with the dragon did trade … each satisfied with the bargain they’d made.

The frog made tiny candles - he made them galore … till  the king threw his hands up and told him no more.

The princess was sleeping when they looked at her broken dream … and discovered a cat - its mouth frothy with cream.

It slipped in the garden under a gate to the east … and ate every bird it could catch for a feast.

The king set out guards they caught the beast quick … and sent it    far south or to the north was its pick.

For Perfaith and others the broken dreams all turned out well  … and Verchoose still waits in his shop … for his own fairy tale.

THE END?