The Marble

I was five years old. I was laying in bed ready to go to sleep. I had my parents come into my room and check under the bed and in the closet, making sure no one was there. I was afraid of the rug at night. It was a beautiful red, gold, black and brown Persian carpet. At night it came alive. I saw turtles which were merely patterns in the carpet in the light. As for the closet, I imagined it was full of tribal people, lions, elephants, rhinoceros, and zebras. How they all fit in there with my clothes and toys was beyond me. At least I didn’t have to worry about monsters.

My parents turned the lights off and left my room. I turned on my side, facing the wall. There was a nightstand between my bed and the wall with a marble sitting on it. All of a sudden, the marble began to move. It slowly rolled across the table and dropped to the floor. I leaned over the side of the bed to see where it went. The marble began to roll towards the corner of the room. I got out of bed to see where it went.

There was a small hole in the floor. The hole was just a little bigger than the marble. The marble slowly rolled towards the hole and then disappeared from sight. I crawled across the floor and looked down into the hole. The marble was sitting on the cement in the garage, beneath my room.

I got out of bed and went downstairs. I opened the door to the garage and saw the marble sitting there waiting for me. The garage door began to open and the marble slowly rolled towards it and out to the driveway. I walked toward it and watched it slowly roll down the driveway.

The marble turned right when it reached the street. It slowly rolled down the side of the street with me in tow. Once it reached the end of the street, I woke up. It was a dream. A dream in which I lost my marble.