The Captains Dream

The Vulcan looked up as I entered the bridge. No emotion, no reaction could be read on that unchanging continence. An eyebrow raised only the slightest micrometer, and I stopped dead still.

He had reacted!

But to what?

Why?

Had one of those numerous, vitally important dials or gages before him at his station; or the computer, through some method beyond mere human understanding, reported to him the near and ultimate destruction of the entire universe?

"Captain," he intoned solemnly in his precise English, "I believe you've forgotten something."

I stood peering at him and thinking furiously. No, I had given all the necessary orders, checked and double checked all the thousand and one things that absolutely had to be checked...but...

I had grabbed a couple of minutes sack time before coming back to the bridge.

"What..", I began, blinking in alarm.

"Your boots, Captain." he said without even a flicker of an eyelash and pointed a long slender index finger at my left big toe as it protruded defiantly from its sock.

With that I gratefully awoke and very carefully put on my boots; after tucking my toe discreetly back within its sock.