I Dreamt This Story by Art Paul Schlosser

 Did you ever have one of those strange dreams when you ate some weird food in the middle of the night because you are having trouble sleeping? Well, I did and it was this story I’m about to tell. It all took place up North somewhere but I can’t say where because it wasn’t in the dream. Once a long time ago there was a little boy about 10 or 12 or 11 who was always helping his Mother by doing errands. I don’t know where the Father was because he was not part of the dream. Well, most of the time the little boy knew where he was going and could make his way around the town but this one time his mother was going to make him this special cake which needed a special ingredient so he had to go to this other part of town and he got lost. Trying to find his way back he got more and more lost either by rides he got or trying to walk back without a compass {they didn’t have gps or cell phones in those days and even maps were rare}. So eventually he ended up in another far away town that didn’t know anything about the other town or where it was. Some Farmer and his Wife took him in and when he got older he became a great salesman who eventually had his own store. He also had a nice wife and ten kids. He knew his address and would write letters to his Mom all the Time and as time went on, he eventually figured out how far away he was and   planned to go back and visit but time kept moving on as it does. Well one day he heard about a great sale somewhere near by and I bet your thinking he got lost again? And you would be right because in his attempt to get there he took the wrong train {Yes by this time in the stories there were trains}. Somehow in his attempt to go back to where he used to live he took another wrong train and one wrong event lead to another until he ended up in the town his Mother lived in. Well instead of trying to go back he thought he might as well visit his Mother who probably was wondering when he would ever visit her. In visiting his Mother, he saved his own life perhaps or maybe didn’t have a chance to save his family because he was with his Mother for about 2 weeks when he saw the newspaper {yes by this time there were also newspapers} article about a strange fire that killed his wife and ten children so considering going back seemed strange because there would be no family to go back to. However he still had a store there and so he thought well maybe they would fine for another 2 weeks and then he would go back and visit his friends at the funeral. But life is really odd or very strange because as he planned to go back and buy a ticket to there at the railroad station the person selling tickets said there was no town there anymore because it had been wiped out by an avalanche. Yes life is really strange! You don’t know how long you will live or when you will die so I hope you do the things that touch people like love and kindness before it is too late. Oddly enough a letter lost in the mail came months later to his Mother. It was a letter his wife sent 2 days after he got lost. It said how much she really loved him and all the kind things he did for her and the family and why didn’t he ever tell her about his Mother. It had drawings of his wife and the ten kids and the town they lived in that she had made now and then while waiting for dinner to be done. It also said if she knew where he was to tell him the family misses him and are praying for him. How sad to know they were gone and the town was gone to but it was nice to know she was thinking of him and he was still alive and God had saved him and that his family was all Christian so even if they were gone they would be in heaven. Also he would be able to spend a little time with his Mother before death would take her to. It’s this kind of story that makes you really wonder why did I eat that weird food before I went back to bed and it makes you want to pray God please if I am not doing the right things in my life please help me to do better.