While You Sleep

Yellow and red polka dots on a gray background were painted on the steps that make a stoop that leads up to the front door where Puggles curls up on his blankets that he sleeps on as Karmella dances about her garden yards doing all their chores — whistling all the while.

She has plans to add more colors or make all the dots into flowers with peace signs in some of their middles, but there are other things more pressing at the moment. There’s always more to do once all the doing’s thought to be done and what’s the point of waking up each morning if there isn’t? All the things you think are worries, are in fact the glories — so Karmella makes sure to keep more things ahead to always have a thing or two or more to have to do.

There is a covered porch that spreads out past the front door stoop that goes all around the cottage on all sides. It has balustrades and rails that are only open at the stoop stairs and the stairs at the back door as well. They have just about as much room for doing what they want to, underneath the cover of the porch as inside too.

Karmella built it that way so that Puggles can be shaded and protected from falling off the edge if he walks around looking for her when he wakes up as he does from time to time. If she catches him when he wakes up, sometimes she collects him and brings him down to sniff things and wobble around. Sometimes they’ll sit together on a grassy covered ground spot, underneath a shady tree. Puggles loves to snuggle and Karmella loves to snuggle Puggles too. Sometimes they’ll even take another nap.

Today Puggles woke up and she went up to collect him from where he was lying on his blankets near the door. She brought him down to where she’d been, he sniffed around a little, wobbled some and plopped back down again — right in the middle of a patch of grass that was directly in the Sun. Karmella stopped what she was doing just to be beside his little body while he warmed his cold old bones in the wonderful heat of their brightly shining closest star. Puggles put his whole body into it and stretched it out so every inch could get a ray. Karmella whistled softly while he drifted some into a foggy haze of happy thinking —  she could tell because his little feet were running right in place.

Karmella loves to stare at Puggles because Puggles is her favorite love.

A long time ago, one day while she was dancing, all the time whistling, he suddenly appeared at the end of a double rainbow. He was just a little puppy, wriggling around lapping and looking — she went right over to where he was to see if he wanted to stay.  It seems that there aren’t a lot of things that can manage to come and be where she is — and whatever manages to, she cherishes with all of her heart. It seems to be that only things that like to dance or whistle or wriggle or romp or dance or sing or love and be loved can manage to be in the realm where Karmella is — and only things that know or can learn their special language and sing along somehow the way they do.

She gently picked up the little sandy brown puppy and his body was plump and warm and fuzzy and he lapped her face and as much as told her with his round puppy hazel eyes and soft little puppy wiggles that he wanted to stay. And, of course, he didn’t disappear.

She held him close to kiss him on his nose.

They started their adventures right from there and from then on, he went wherever she did and danced the dance the same way with her all around the yards while they did all their chores –until the little puppy tired out enough to take a nap.

“What shall we call you little puppy?” Karmella asked before he closed his tired little puppy eyes. She said, “I’ll think of something while you sleep,” and kissed him for good measure on his little sandy-colored fury puppy face. She went and got some blankets and made a soft and fluffy bed right at the entrance to the house so that she could keep an eye on him and he could keep a sleeping eye on her. She went back to doing chores but never got too far away or if she did, she came back in a hurry. He was just a baby puppy after all.

Karmella decided to ask the birds and bees and bugs that had all managed to arrive and stay, just what they thought of the new addition and what they might think would be a good thing to call him. They all chatted for awhile, all the time that she was busy doing this, the other and that and before long came to a consensus that since he was a puppy that liked to snuggle he should always be called Puggles. They all agreed that would be the best way they would all know at any given time who they were talking or referring to. Puggles was the perfect puppy that likes to snuggle name and it was a lot shorter than saying it all, the long way.

Right about that time, the little puppy came trotting around the corner to join them and they all wondered if he knew what they’d just said. Sure enough, the little puppy did. He wasn’t very good at talking back yet, but he wagged his little tail instead — his plump little round body wiggling with it as he wagged it. It was settled — he was from then on almost always to be referred to or called Puggles. Sometimes Karmella called him My Little Lovey Dovey too. 

“Come here My Little Lovey Dovey and get a cookie.” Puggles loved it very much the times she did. That would from then on be referred to as cookie dookie time. They all liked to make up names to remember things.

“What time is it Puggles?” Karmella would ask. And Puggles would wiggle and wag and wiggle some more and she’d know that it was time for cookies. Then again, pretty much any time Puggles was asked what time it was, it was the same time all the time.

Puggles got finished warming his old bones in the Sun and Karmella got shifted by his waking, out of her memories of when he was just a puppy and they both headed back to the cottage to think about dinner. Karmella let him walk as far as he wanted to and when he stopped long enough, she lifted him into her arms to carry. Puggles lapped her face and she kissed his nose and Karmella then asked Puggles, “What shall we have for dinner My Snuggley Little Puppy?” That was another name she liked to call him from time to time. Sometime her heart was just to full to make it brief.

Puggles didn’t mind if they had cookie dookies, but Karmella said they better eat a little something more nutritious and save the cookies for after dinner as desert. Puggles somewhat reluctantly agreed knowing full well that there would be a cookie handed out for in between.

 

Something Quite Unusual is the prelude to this (what is likely to be an ongoing) story.

 

 

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Something Quite Unusual

Her skin was purple, the lightest shade more like a white that had been tinted, that would appear as a purple haze when lighting was just right. Her hair shone like a yellow daisy with marshmallow-colored streaks highlighting the top most layers. Her skin had a blush to it that could only be referred to as a mellow shade of lime because that was what the Sun brought out in tanning for the time spent daily planting vegetables, herbs and trees within the space that was a garden. A bright orange, bibbed and bowed apron with harvesting pockets covered a white gauze dress that was for purpose to let air and light flow freely through and it waved and fluttered as she danced about in merriment, jumping for joy as she went about her daily chores. And one could slightly see the silhouette of her tall and slender body showing through it if they looked hard at her when a light came through it from behind her. She liked to sew and garden and would very often be prancing to and fro, from one task to the other like a ballerina — bugs and bees and butterflies making sure to keep her company — and a little dog named Puggles curled up in a ball on a blanket near the door sleeping because he was old and feeble and couldn’t dance like she could any more. He just waited for her, patiently, because he knew that later they would snuggle and she would kiss him.

Mostly she just whistled or spoke in a secret language to the critters all about her. It was generally very quiet except for the preferred music of the air and tree leaves being moved by it or the rain tapping when it fell — which seemed to be quite often. Bugs spoke too softly for any other ears to hear, but she could and together they made a kind of chorus — the bugs with their sound, the birds theirs, humming bees and her harmonizing whistle accompanied her dancing. She was something quite unusual and if anyone ever saw her, they never did again because she moved about the span of space and time so freely that it was a miracle to catch her in the first place — she was hiding in a secret place that she refused to release the address of mostly because it wouldn’t be where it had been, the next time.

She didn’t like to cook much but loved to have some pretty dishes with blue daisies painted on them and a teapot that looked like a rabbit. She always thought she’d have a soiree but as she knew, she was seldom in the same place long enough and people for the most part didn’t know quite how to find her or how to keep with where she went if they ever managed to. So, instead of wasting time cooking and washing dishes, she ate raw fruit and vegetables over the sink to catch the drippings and just spent the nights snuggling Puggles and looking at her pretty dishes while reading a book with pretty pictures formed by written words.

There was another purple person she kept running into in the margins but they never seemed to be in the same space long enough to know if they could really get along. She thought she caught him dancing and for a split second she heard a whistle, but poof, he left her dimension almost as quickly as he entered. She always kept one or the other of her magenta eyes out for him just the same and was always delighted when she thought she saw his colors fading in and out or moving in the clouds above — thinking he might be on the look out, hoping to find a way to see her too and maybe they could each stay a little longer.

Puggles was ready to snuggle and she was through with her chores and the purple man had failed to show up on that day. She ate her dinner, over the sink of course, and grabbed Puggles after he ate too and they both plopped on the bed and pulled up the multi-colored patchwork quilt to warm them. Puggles wanted to be on the top because he got too hot if he got under it — so she got him made comfy and grabbed her book and turned the light just on the book so she could read it.

Tomorrow they would do the same thing for the most part over again because they liked to. There was plenty of spice and lots of things nice and all of the colors of the rainbow. They would dance and sing and garden and Puggles, of course, would sleep curled up in a ball on a blanket near the door so he could keep his sleeping eyes upon her while she floated about the garden in her white dress. There were many chores to do and all of the time in the world to do them and there was nothing to be sad about. They had everything they needed.

She kissed Puggles goodnight, patted him on his head and said she loved him and offered that they wake up happy in the morning. Puggles licked her face and closed his eyes, scrunching just a little to make himself more comfortable. She read a little and turned the light out, scrunching just a little too.