Timothy S. Klugh

TIMOTHY S. KLUGH

LITERATURE

Photograph by T. Shawn Klugh II

The girl I dreamed of when I was a young who I chose not to forget:

It was not taking place in the present day. My guess would be the early 1900’s. She had long blonde hair that draped over the pretty dress she was wearing. She had a beautiful smile on her face as we strolled along a dirt lane between some white barns at a fair. She was to sing in the parade that would soon take place. At the moment I was feeling down and she was trying to cheer me up. She said that she had a surprise for me, and I asked her what it was. Not wanting to reveal her secret, she told me that I would know soon.

The time arrived for her to leave and she told me to be in view of her on the parade route. When the parade came, she was on a float being pulled by horses. She was singing a song that was dearly familiar to me in the dream. When she saw me, she sang to me directly until she had passed by. That was when I awoke from the dream. Immediately my heart missed her deeply. I could not get over it. The song was still in my head, but it was fading away. I realized that I had never heard the song before. I did not know how to play an instrument yet, so I quickly rehearsed the melody in my head. I got out a piece of paper and wrote the lyrics to the song. It was the first time I had captured a song from a dream.

The tune was called “Ferris Wheel”, and as I wrote the words that I could recall, I realized it was a sad little song. It was a song about a beautiful memory of a man riding the Ferris wheel with the woman he loved. He then speaks about losing her. For the rest of his life he mourns the loss of his true love, and he rides the Ferris wheel alone to remember her. I could not help but see a relationship between the song and the dream of the girl at the fair. Once the dream was over, I felt heartsick that she was gone. It has never left me.

Here are the lyrics to “Ferris Wheel”:

I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
Where love is full and gay.
I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
Where mem’ries never fade.

I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
Where good friends seldom change.
I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
Where hate will never stay.

I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
With my Dolly Sweet Delight.
We’re going to ride the Ferris wheel
From early eve ‘til night.

A few rides passed and I got off
And let her ride once more.
She vanished in the darkened sky.
She’d gone forevermore.

Now I will ride the Ferris wheel,
And I will die alone.
I’m going to ride the Ferris wheel
Let the darkness never come.

I did find a way to bring her back into my life. I named her Barbara Susan, and she has appeared in my books “The Great Christmas” and “The Pleasantville Experience”. She also appeared in my play “The Guitar Jamboree”. This was my way of spending time with her again. Even the abandoned fairgrounds in “The Pleasantville Experience” represents the fair in the dream. The character Mary Jane Wesleyan in “The Pleasantville Experience” also represents her. I have seen a lot of her in my beautiful wife.

In late 2016, a friend of mine named Laura Harris made me a beautiful doll of the character Sture from my musical called “Magick & Poison: The Musical”. Her next gift that she gave me for Christmas of 2016 touched me deeply. She made me a dull of the girl at the fair. I almost cried.

Written on 05/24/2017

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