Gabrielle's Fourth Dream

"Well, there you are! I've been looking for you all day."

Gabrielle looked up at Lila with red-rimmed eyes, tears running down her cheeks.

"Oh, Gabrielle! What's wrong? You look like you've been crying all day."

With a crooked half smile, Gabrielle nodded her head, "I guess I have. It's been so hard putting my dream down on this scroll. Every time I start writing I start crying."

"Gabrielle, how can it be that sad? It's only a dream you know."

"I know. And I've told myself that so many times. But this dream, ALL my dreams, are so REAL! It's like they actually happened and I'm just remembering them."

"Maybe if you read to me what you've already written it won't seem quite so sad."

"No, I can't. I've tried reading it back to myself, and I just started crying all over again. But you're welcome to read it if you'd like."

Lila sat down in the grass next to Gabrielle and took the scroll from her.

"Okay. 'The Story of the Death of My Husband.' It starts out sad right from the title."

"Lila, please don't read it out loud. I don't think I could bear to hear it."

"Of course not, Gabrielle, not if you don't want me to."

As Lila started reading again, Gabrielle couldn't help but watch her lips as she silently read the story to herself.

After a short while, Lila asked, "Who's this Callisto? I don't think you've ever mentioned her before."

"I'm not sure who she is, but I get this feeling that she's horribly evil."

Lila continued reading. As she got toward the end of the scroll, Gabrielle saw her eyes began to glisten just a bit. Knowing what she was reading, Gabrielle began to softly weep, wiping away tears that wouldn't stop.

When she was finished and put down the scroll, Lila said, a little sadly. "Gabrielle, I'm really sorry your dream is so sad, and it's so violent, too. But I can't help but wonder why you dreamed about Perdicus being killed. Do you really hate him, or the thought of marrying him, so much?"

"NO! I don't hate Perdicus, but I know I can't marry him. He's a good man. And he's a hard worker, and he'd be a good provider for me, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing housework and raising children. I'm destined to do so much more. I just KNOW it!"

Shaking her head, Lila said, "Gabrielle, I don't know how you got this way, but face it, women were created to bear and raise children. We take care of the household. Just like men protect us and do the manual labor to provide for us. It's always been that way, and it always will."

"NO! I don't believe that! We can do, and be, anything we want. We just have to ... to DO it, that's all!"

"Gabrielle, just because you dream about women who are strong and brave and don't need men around doesn't mean that it's so. Tell the truth, have you EVER heard of a woman who was a soldier? Or who ruled a kingdom? Or even a town? No, of course you haven't."

"Cleopatra." Gabrielle interjected.

"Okay. That's ONE. Which may, or may not be a true story. But even if it is, women AREN'T as strong or as bloodthirsty as men are. We just aren't."

"Then maybe it's time we were."

"Okay, just say you wanted to be the Head Magistrate of Poteidaia, what would you do?"

"Well, I guess first thing, I'd have a public meeting to announce to everyone of my intentions."

"And do you actually think anyone would come to a meeting called by a poor peasant girl who's barely in her seventeenth year?"

"So maybe I'd have to wait until I was older, maybe twenty or twentyone."

"And then they'd want to know what is wrong with a woman of that age who isn't married with one or two children already."

"It's not fair, Lila! It's just not fair!"

"Gabrielle, who said life was fair? But think about this - what if life really WAS fair? Wouldn't it be terrible if we actually deserved all the bad things that happen to us? All the pain, and the diseases, and the wars, and the deaths of those we love? I couldn't think of a more terrible world to live in, could you?

Shaking her head, Gabrielle knew Lila was right. Whether her life as a peasant woman was fair or not, perhaps it was the way it's supposed to be.