The Time of the Gathering

Mrs. Valentine pushed the front door open, her arms heavy with shopping bags and called for the girls with a shrill voice. Her blonde, substantial daughter Millie and her two waifish college friends Julia and Judith came running into the foyer after perming Millie’s hair in the dark and painting her nails for the talent show. Her long-suffering handyman James was up on a ladder painting the wall even though it was Nine O’clock at night. The three girls assembled in front of her as she put the bags down.

“This floor needs to be waxed and you girls need to get on track for the show.” she said strictly. “We don’t have a chef, you really have no idea the cost and the planning that goes into these events. Millie you’re the only beauty queen in the state over 200 pounds.” (Millie rolled her eyes at this.) “Everything has to be perfect or your accomplishments will be for nothing and people won’t want to move here. James!”

She turned and walked past the ladder never taking a breath.

“I want the paneling finished by tomorrow and those insufferable scuff-marks removed.” she sighed. “I’d rather be building a bowling alley…”

She had already disappeared down the back hall when she thought she heard him say “Right away Miss Kitty”. She stopped in her tracks and turned back.

“What did you say?”

“I said right away Mrs. V.” James was focused on his brushwork. The girls were still standing there like a testament to faulty hearing.

“Right...” she turned back around suspiciously, continuing to her private quarters.

The little security room with monitors stacked to the ceiling was directly across from her bed and the screens cast a dim blue-gray light on the bedsheets that always helped her go right to sleep, but she looked down with apprehension as if she dreaded to get into it. She immediately got out her phone and dialed her therapist.

“Yes it’s Sabine, I’m sorry to call you at home this late but I have a thousand and one things to get done. I’m chairwoman of the board and I own the clubhouse, I’d just like to be able to get a decent eight-hour sleep before I go right back to it.” she reported.

“Well is there something preventing you?” the phone answered.

“Well my workman James just called me something I’m sure I misheard. He’s been with me nine years and he’s never done it before so I’d hate to terminate him.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He called me ‘Miss Kitty’.” she felt remiss to repeat it. “It’s not a name I’ve ever been called before, I don’t even know what it means except that it’s made me think of that stupid dream.”

“The one where you’re a cat?”

“Yes, no one not even the girls or my late husband know about it. I want to know how to avoid having it again, you can tell me that can’t you?”

“Yes but you’ve barely told me anything about it.” she responded. “What is it that makes you uncomfortable? Do you go around on all fours?”

“No I’m a young girl wearing a cat suit, permanently I suppose, at least I think I’m a girl under it.” she said with reluctance. “Everyone in the dream wears a sort of bunny-warmers with hands and feet and a hood with little pointed ears, and there are whiskers drawn on my face. It’s like a children’s program with live actors, like… oh what was the name of that show? Except they’re not colorful in any way and it’s filmed outdoors at a public park. And they get into situations that are… I want to say more adult than one would expect? You’re not going to share this with anyone are you?”

“No it’s confidential, but it would be hard to interpret until I know more. Many people dream about some aspect of their life that is missing or absent, which is why they seem to reflect the opposite of our personalities. Shall I clear a space for you tomorrow?”

“No I just want to stop having it now so I can have an uneventful night.”

“Well there’s no quick fix for these things, but you can start working on a simple word or phrase you can invoke as a ‘safe word’ to end the dream and wake you up, the simpler the better. Some people take months to retain it and some aren’t able to do it at all.”

“Thanks I’ll try it. Remember not to tell anyone.” she hung up the phone. The simplest solutions were often the best ones and she already knew what she wanted the safe word to be; “Clear”. She had always disliked the sight of blood and it was the most non-sanguine word she could think of. She repeated it in her thoughts as she lie down and her eyes closed.

-

“’The Time of the Gathering’ is a program brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and viewers like you.” an unseen narrator spoke. The angle of view descended from a clear sky down to a neighborhood adjoining a long, green wooded park. What appeared to be the backs of row houses shared a straight little path along which each house had a large dairy cow behind a white picket fence on either side as if the cows themselves lived in them. A corpulent woman dressed as an owl was sitting at a little tea table holding a baby dressed as a little cow.

The pure white kitten was sitting across from her nibbling at breakfast, whiskers painted on her round human face.

“Shh, he’s sleeping.” Mrs. Owl smiled and cradled the infant.

“Oh sorry!” the kitten brought her furry mitten up to her mouth and said “Sleeping is my favorite thing to do, I just lay my head down on a patch of grass and go to sleep…”. She placed the palms of her hands together and leaned to one side just thinking about it.

“Are you going to see your scary friend the wolf today?” Mrs. Owl asked her.

“He’s not scary…” she rolled her eyes as casually as if it were a joke. “He’s just…” she tried to think of the right word, “People don’t really know him.”.

“Well I only know what you’ve told me and it sounds like you would fit in his mouth.” Mrs. Owl replied.

“Why do people say that?” her voice became a high squeak. “What does it matter if I fit in his mouth or not? I don’t think he has a big mouth.”

“Well why don’t you ever bring him with you?” she asked next.

“Wellll….” her eyes made a complete circle. “He prefers to be alone. I wish there was someone else like me I could play with.”

A thick gray mist obscured the trees at the back of the park behind a little freshwater stream. Out of it stepped two young males, the taller one dressed as a brown fox and the shorter one a cowardly bear with little round ears.

“We made it!” the fox wiped his brow and looked out at the clear parkland ahead of them in astonishment. “I thought I’d never see another person again.”

His little friend looked dubiously up at him, then they both got down on the ground to drink from the stream. After they had jumped across, the fox said “Oh!” and stopped his friend at the sight of a hole in the ground that contained a football-sized mass of yellowjackets, perhaps two hundred of them.

The white kitten was waving excitedly at them and skipping toward them about to step over the roots of a tree that had the nest directly under it. They shouted for her to stop and then the small bear held up his paws over his eyes.

“We’re the only ones who can stop it.” the brave fox grasped what looked like a jewel around his neck and declared “Confidence guards the heart!”.

He seemed to vanish in a beam of light and rematerialized where the kitten was about to land, hoisting her up and they both disappeared and reappeared back where he was standing. He gently let her down as the light faded and she looked at the swarm with eyes as big as saucers, her paws covering her mouth as if she was praying.

“Wh-who are you and how did you do that?” her heart pounded in her chest.

“This is Short Nod, and I’m Wenceslas Foxbender.” the brave fox introduced them with pride.

“I’m Pretty Kitty!” she whinnied in amazement at their names, her white teeth showing. “Where did you come from?”

They both pointed across the stream into the fog.

“It’s so nice to meet someone like myself!” she shared her joy. “How can I ever thank you for saving me from those bees?”

“A good deed is its own reward.” Wenceslas said proudly, and placed a hand on each of them as they continued into the park.

-

2

Mrs. Valentine awoke and began the day in a stressed state. She threw herself together as there was a board meeting and was about to rush out the front door when a buzzing sound no one else heard made her skid to a stop and say “Ack!”.

“What’s wrong?” Millie asked as she grabbed the sides of the doorway.

“Nothing, I thought a heard a wasp.” Mrs. V answered and marched onward.

At the community building she seemed annoyed, but the retired Englishman who was her vice-chair looked at her warmly as the other distinguished members assembled.

“Quite a show last night.” he lowered his voice.

“What do you mean my daughter dressing like a tramp, the sound problems or my workman performing ‘I’m Your Handyman’?” she demanded.

“The figures have surpassed our expectations and everyone’s raving about it.” he whispered. “Mission accomplished eh? I’ve made copies of the projections for you, Venn diagram just the way you like it.”

He gestured toward her perfectly-arranged place at the table and pulled out her chair.

“Thank you Giles.” her tone softened at his efforts.

After the board’s first order of business the vice-chair announced his intentions to step down, Mrs. V looking up at him with concern. After the meeting they shared an unspoken farewell as she said “Keep in touch” and he gave her a peck on the cheek and a card that made her think he might be fond of her.

It was sitting on her desk that afternoon when she looked at the little security monitor and saw the Englishman leaving the building. Another member of the board was waiting for him, she greeted him with a kiss which he returned by bending down and kissing her amorously. Mrs. V stared wide-eyed as he handed her a gift bag and she pulled out some kind of lingerie and gave him a hug, as the little radio played Phil Collins’ “Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away”.

She grabbed her cell phone and dialed her therapist immediately.

“Yes it happened again and your idea didn’t work.” she said with a scowl. “I had no control, I never do.”

“Well it’s not a magic trick, psychological tools have to be honed over a long period of time.” her therapist replied. “Come in and tell me more about it.”

A long, green section of the park was filled with rolling meadows and ordinary families playing frisbee. But there were two identical gray rabbits, identical twins, fighting over a little gold coin. And there was a canal that seemed to be full of rapidly-flowing red mud and a little sign that read “DANGER”.

When Pretty Kitty and her friends saw they were furry human animals like themselves they approached curiously.

“Finders keepers!” the one rabbit grimaced as she twisted the other one’s weak little arm and held it behind her back.

“I don’t have anything you don’t have!” the other one protested. “I don’t have anything that makes me special!”

She turned and flung her sibling into the bottomless canal of mud. Pretty Kitty gasped at this cruelty between siblings and they all rushed over to see. The rabbit was flailing wildly in the current and already going under, her muddy face spitting out reddish-brown muck.

“I didn’t mean to do that!!” her sibling pleaded and looked around in desperation. “I’m sorry, I’ll let you have whatever you want!”

“Please, I don’t want to die!!” the other rabbit disappeared under the churn with only her flailing hands visible. Wenceslas rushed to find a long-enough branch, extending it down into the mud as Short Nod helped him support the weight of it. They pulled out a scrawny animal coated in mud that clung to the branch and then collapsed in the grass.

The other rabbit embraced her getting mud all over her fur. The first one was unrecognizable as a rabbit, trying to smear the reddish mud from her eyes.

“I’d offer to lick you clean but I don’t think I could do it!” Pretty Kitty remarked, rubbing her belly. The others all turned and looked at her.

“What are your names?” Wenceslas asked them.

“I’m Hunny Bunny,” the clean one answered, “and this is Hunny Moon.”.

A snickering sound like an old woman laughing seemed to come from all around them. The animals looked up but there was no one there.

“Well that was certainly interesting.” the therapist chuckled. “I have to say it goes beyond the kind of dream people usually have. There are writers, artists, composers who just dream their next composition instead of analyzing what it means per say. So do any of the characters remind you of people you know?”

“No, there is nothing familiar about it at all.” Mrs. V frowned. “I’ve never known a city park like that one, not even as a child.”

-

The Wolf’s eyes were so large they seemed to move laboriously as they peered from the darkness of the forest, watching a little domesticated pet rabbit. But then the face of an anthropomorphic cat-girl came skipping up behind him.

“Ooooooh…” she pressed the side of her face against a tree, her eyes darting from left to right as she stealthily raised her leg. With a low groan the wolf’s black eyes rolled back into its head.

“What do you want?” he asked her in a deep bass voice.

Kitty was stepping from rock to rock. “I want… you… to be…. Happy…!”

He grumbled again, turning his huge head and gave up on hunting for the day.

-

3

Mrs. Valentine never figured out what her recurring dream was trying to say about her, so she volunteered for a sleep study to control it with drugs. The staff came to her home although it cost thousands. They put her in a white hospital gown, and for the first time in her life she was dependent on her daughter Millie for something instead of holding the girls on a tight leash. Her bed was surrounded with curtains and monitoring equipment, she lie down and was put under to begin a dreamless sleep.

She had a bad reaction to the treatment and awoke screaming. Millie’s presence seemed to calm her down as the therapist was called and they checked her vitals. When Millie gripped her hand the patient looked up into her face.

“You’re beautiful.” was the first thing she said with only a trace of her usual voice.

“You’ve never told me that before.” Millie replied. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“How can I be like you?” she asked with a look of wonderment, and then “Where am I?”.

She rose slowly and parted the curtains, gasping at the reality of her dark bedroom and the computer screens the sight of which caused her to panic. She tried to escape into the rest of the house which she found even more disturbing, but her therapist had arrived and was holding her steady.

“Just breathe in nice easy breaths…” she advised. “Do you remember what your safe word is?”

“Yes…” the patient’s eyes rose slowly to meet hers. “Deliciousness!”

Pretty Kitty suddenly awoke from her nightmare landing hard in the grass.

“Where do you go?” the wolf asked her.

“I don’t know but it was a bad dream!” she said with wide eyes.

After Mrs. Valentine’s collapse she was taken by ambulance to a facility where she was observed for several days. Her therapist and family members demanded they induce her to wake, hoping she would object to the cost like her usual self. Her eyes opened slowly and peered around; her face was wrapped under the chin with padding and she was secured to the bed.

“Do you remember who I am?” the therapist asked her.

“The witch who laughs…” the patient mumbled.

“Can you tell me your first name?”

“Pretty... Kitty…” she answered slowly.

The therapist and family physician looked at each other.

“You’re the cat from Sabine’s dream?” she demanded next. The patient nodded.

“Can you tell us what part of her you represent?” she saw an opportunity to pursue an unusual line of psychosis.

“I don’t even know her.” the patient dismissed this nonsense.

Then she asked “What is the dream where you come from? What does it mean?”

“It doesn’t ‘mean’ anything it’s just where I live with my friends.” she answered. “I’m a person and I want to live my life...”

She started to get up from the bed, straining against the rubber bands holding her in place.

“Put her back under.” the doctor instructed as the nurse and orderlies rushed in to hold her down.

“Why are you doing this!” the patient screamed and fought them with nonexistent claws. “I’m as alive as you are! I am alive!!”

As they injected her she collapsed onto the bed. The person they knew would never be heard from again.