Dreams. You know, I’ve always loved to dream. Especially daydreamin’. Boy, I always daydream. I mean, always. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a dream and what’s reality. But I can usually tell, especially at school. Every time I daydream at school, it really gets Miss Johnson’s goat. Miss Johnson, see, she’s this young, beautiful teacher at the high school. She’s nice, usually, but, boy, if she’s in a bad mood, Look out! She’s been my teacher for two years now. You see, this is my fifth year at Bancroft. That’s the high school. I started in ‘53, but, for some reason or another, they always tell me to come back next year. That’s all right, thought. I like it there.
But anyway, like I was tellin’ you, Miss Johnson hates it when I daydream, and, believe me, she won’t hesitate to let me and everyone in the next county know either! She’ll always stop her lectures to help me return to reality.
“Steven. Oh, Steven,” she always starts in a whisper. I guess she doesn’t wanna startle me or somethin’.
“Steven. Napoleon. Mr. Edison. Whoever you are this time. Could you please tell me who the 15th President of the United States was?”
God, she always did that. I’d be on some far-off planet fightin’ aliens to save the Earth colony, and she’d asked me somethin’ stupid like who the 15th President of the United States was. Who cares? I guess she handled it pretty well, thought. I know I wouldn’t like it if I were lecturin’, and some dumb kid wasn’t even payin’ attention.
But anyway, I guess I should get on with my story, seein’ as how you came all the way from Kansas City to talk to me. I still can’t understand why a newspaper writer like you would drive 20 miles to our little town just because some of the grown-ups thought that what happened last week was somethin’ special. It really wasn’t nothin’ at all, but I guess when you live in a small town things tend to get blown out of proportion sometimes.
As you can probably tell, I tend to wander off the subject every now and then. It probably comes from daydreamin’ so much. But now back to my story.
It all happened last Tuesday. No, it must’ve been Wednesday, because I had to help my pop lift the engine out of the truck on Tuesday. Yeah, it was Wednesday. School got out at three o’clock, as usual, and I began to walk home. About the only thing that had made that day any different than any other day was that we had had a substitute teacher, seein’ as how Miss Johnson had been home in bed with the flu and all. So, when I started walkin’ home, I did what I always did, I began daydreamin’. But this time, it was sorta weird. It wasn’t like I’d never had any weird dreams or nothin’, because I had. Lord knows I had! It’s just that this one seemed so real.
Well, anyway, in my dream, I was walkin’ home from school, and I saw some smoke not more than two blocks away. Out of curiosity, if nothing else, I went over to take a look-see. I couldn’t believe it, but there was Miss Johnson’s house, all covered with black smoke and yellow flames almost so’s I couldn’t recognize it. But it was hers all right, so I started askin’ some of the standers-by what had happened. No one seemed to know anythin’ except for this lady who said she’d called the fire department just five minutes ago. It cracked me up just thinkin’ of how much good ole Charlie Wheeler’s firetruck was gonna do against such big flames. That guy spends more time waxin’ the engine, cleanin’ the firehouse, and gettin’ people’s kitties out of trees than actually puttin’ out fires.
Well, it finally hit me that I hadn’t seen Miss Johnson anywhere, and, after askin’ around, I found that neither had anyone else. At that instant, we heard her cries and saw her in one of the second-story windows, flames slowly working their way over to that part of the house. Before I knew what I was doin’, my legs were carryin’ the rest of my body into the blazin’ structure, needless to say without my mind’s consent, let alone my heart’s.
Inside, the heat was unbearable and the smoke hurt my eyes and chest. I looked around, found the stairs, and clambered up to where Miss Johnson was now alternately yellin’, coughin’, wheezin’, and sobbin’. I found her near the window of her small room, but I didn’t feel she recognized me. Maybe it was because she called me Tommy. Imagine confusin’ me for her fiancee! Well, seein’ as how I had neither the time, breath, or willingness to set her straight, I let her believe what she wanted and helped her to her feet. When we turned to leave the room, half the roof caved in like a huge mass of fire. And, as in many of my dreams, the fire conveniently blocked the only route of escape, the door. But, alas, the window had yet to be tried!
I went over, and to my combined surprise and relief, a couple of the neighbors had fetched a ladder and were now puttin’ it up. Once that was secured, I grabbed Miss Johnson, flung her over my shoulder, and started out the window and down the ladder, the whole time havin’ her call me Tommy and say how much she loved me. When we finally touched firm ground, someone put blankets over us and eventually ushered us into a car. I blacked out then. About the last things I remember are the pain in my chest, Miss Johnson’s jibberish, someone marvelling at what a “heroic deed” she had just witnessed, and, as I looked up, ole Charlie Wheeler sprinklin’ some water at the fire as the remainder of the house crumbled to the ground.
When I woke up some three hours later, I found myself in that hospital you folks have in the city. I felt like I’d just woken from a dream, but I soon found that I had actually just lived my dream. I always fantasize about being some great hero or doin’ somethin’ courageous, and it seems that I finally did somethin’ of the sort, only through it all I thought I was just daydreamin’ on the way home. Kinda spooky, huh? I mean, always dreamin’ of doin’ somethin’, and, when you finally do it, thinkin’ it was all just a dream?
Well, that’s about all I can remember. I hope you weren’t too bored, and I certainly hope you feel it was worth the trip to come here. Can I ask you somethin’ before you go? Do you ever dream? I mean, really dream? Maybe you should. You know, I used to feel bad about it, since everyone kept tellin’ me it wasn’t healthy. But after what happened to me, I know I’m always gonna keep dreamin’. Who knows, maybe someday one of my other dreams will come true. Now wouldn’t that be somethin’?
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