Dear Sept,
I felt so strange the next day after that dream, as if I weren’t all there. While you were at school, I painted. I have no idea where this composition came from–three fish, swimming through space. These were no ordinary koi. These are cosmic koi.
I felt drawn to the blackness of space.
I had to go inside and sit down. I felt so strange.
What could it be? Why could I only remember fragments of that dream?
A few years back, Brio sent me a letter. I looked through the folder on the computer where I save all my correspondence. There it was.
“I know for a fact that me carrying my children had to do with those hours I cannot recall…”
Those hours I cannot recall…
Why can’t I remember all of my dream? I was still trying to reconnect with that dream experience when you came home from your study session at the library.
“Son,” I asked, “do you ever have dreams you can’t recall?”
“I forget them in the everyday,” you answered, “but on some level, their traces remain with me always. What’s up, Pops?”
“I feel odd, son,” I confessed.
“Let me see you, Pops.”
I stood before you. What came next can only be described as the sensation of a total and complete body scan. It wasn’t unpleasant. It tickled. But it felt like blue rose petals, and it brought me back to myself.
“You’re OK, Pops!” you said. “You’re fine. You’ve just had your first extra-terrestrial experience, that’s all!”
“Oh, man. What do you mean?”
“That dream? That was no dream!” you said. “You met my peoples!”
“How can you be sure?”
You launched into a long, detailed explanation about the storage of memory within the consciousness of cells.
“Nothing’s ever lost, Pops. If it happens, it’s there somewhere.”
“But what about dreams? Maybe the cells were storing dream-experience?”
“Nope. Dream-memories taste different. This was my folks, Pops.”
“What’s the purpose? There’s got to be some reason for this, right? It’s not just some random act.”
“Well,” you said, “I suppose it has something to do with me. They want a connection to the person I’m most connected to, which would be you. They like you, Pops. In fact, one of the data-pieces I picked up in your cells contains a very specific coded message.”
“And that message would be?”
“You’re to expect a very special delivery,” you reported.
A few evenings later, it arrived. We heard a whirring noise, and when we went out to look, we found a pile of crates sitting on a tiny square of tarmac.
“This is it, Pops!” you said. “Our very own rocket-kit! Straight from the Far Star!”
I guess maybe your folks thought we needed another father-son project.
Looking forward to doing some building with you, son.
–Your pops
Author’s Notes: What… you were expecting a different sort of delivery? So was I!
Many thanks to Kira for writing Brio’s letter! You can find Brio and his family’s story at KK’s Sims Stories.
Cathy Tea's SimLit Anthology 