In the middle of his dream, an artist awoke. He reached for his pencil and started to draw. He started with a single dot. It took the artist hours to finish his picture, and afterwards he collapsed1) back into bed. Soon he was asleep again, still smiling from thoughts of what he had drawn¹.

The dot, on the other hand, was not as happy. It looked around the page and saw lines all around. They were long and colorful, and the dot was neither. "I don't belong here," it thought, "I am just a small, meaningless dot and this picture does not need me." So the dot jumped off of the page.

It approached a newspaper that was lying nearby. There were dots all over the newspaper. "Surely² this is where I am meant to be," it said aloud. As soon as the dot hopped2) onto the front page of the newspaper, all the other dots started to yell⁴. "You cannot stay here!" they said. "Why not?" asked the dot. "You are dots, and you are here."

"We are not dots," they said, "we are periods, and we belong in books, and stories, and newspapers. You are just a dot." The dot felt silly, so it left the newspaper.

Then the dot saw a white cube3) with dots on every side. "This is where I belong," it thought to itself. "Excuse me," it said politely to four dots sitting on a side of the cube⁵, "I am a dot and you are dots, so may I join you?"

"No, you may not," said the four dots. "We are dots on a pair of dice4). An extra dot would ruin a pair of dice⁶." The dot felt silly again and hopped³ over to the artist who was sound asleep.

"I wonder why he drew me ..." thought the dot. And that's when it saw dots on the artist's hand and arm. "Perhaps this is where I was meant to be," said the dot as it crawled5) onto the artist's hand and rested.

"Ahem6)," said one of the dots on his arm. "AHEM!" said the arm dot even louder. "You are not a freckle7). You are a dot, and only freckles⁸ belong here." "Aren't freckles a type of dot?" asked the dot, who was not feeling welcome anymore.

"Yes, we are," said the freckle⁷, "We are a special kind of dot, and you are definitely⁹ not one of us." The dot did not know what to do. It didn't belong with lines, or periods, or dice, or freckles.

The artist woke up at that very moment and went to look at his picture, but he was heartbroken by what he saw. He held up the drawing and sighed. "Where has my seed gone?" he cried.

"This is supposed to be a picture of a seed in the soil before it grows into a mighty8) tree, but without the seed, it is useless, and I cannot draw another so perfect as I did the first time," said the artist sadly.

The dot began to feel silly one last time. It had not realized that all along it was not just a dot, but also a seed. A seed may start off9) small, but there's no telling10) how large it will become, how many beautiful leaves it will grow, and how many people will find shelter¹⁰ under it.

The dot jumped back onto the page. It jumped onto the exact spot it had left because it knew that, although it was just a small dot, it meant much more in the big picture.

艺术家从睡梦中醒来,拿起铅笔,开始作画。他从一个孤零零的点画起,花了几个小时才完成画作,然后倒在床上。很快,他便再次进入梦乡,脑海里想着他刚刚完成的画作,脸上仍然盈满了笑意。

不过,那个点可没这么开心。它环顾画纸,发现周围布满了线条。那些线条又修长又亮丽,而点却和这些一点都不沾边。“我不属于这里,”它想,“我只是一个渺小的点,无足轻重,这幅画不需要我。”于是它就从画纸上跳了出来。

它走向旁边放着的一张报纸,上面布满了圆点。“显然这才是我应该待的地方。”它大声说。但就在它一跳上头版的位置时,其他点就立刻开始嚷嚷了起来。“你不能待在这里!”它们说。“为什么不行?”点问,“你们也是点,你们不也待在这里嘛。”

“我们不是点,”它们回答说,“我们是书、小说和报纸上的句点,而你只是一个点。”点自觉愚笨,就离开了报纸。

接着点又看到了一个白色的立方体,每一面都布满了小圆点。“这才是属于我的地方,”它暗自想着。“打扰一下,”它彬彬有礼地对其中一面的四个点说,“我是一个点,你们也是点,我能加入你们吗?”

“不,不行。”那四个点答道,“我们是一副骰子上的点。多一个点这对骰子就没用了。”点再次觉得自己愚蠢无比,就跳到了正在熟睡的艺术家那里。

“我想知道他为什么要画我??”点思忖着。就在这时,它看到了艺术家手臂上的那些点。“或许这才是我应该去的地方。”点一边说着,一边爬到艺术家手上,安顿了下来。

“嗨,”艺术家胳膊上的一个点说话了。“嗨!”胳膊上的点提高了嗓门。“你不是雀斑。你是一个点;只有雀斑才能待在这里。”“难道雀斑不是一种点吗?”觉得又受到了冷落的点问。

“是,我们是点。”雀斑说,“但我们不是普通的点,而你确实不属于我们。”点有些不知所措。它不属于线条,也不属于句点、骰子和雀斑。

就在这时,艺术家醒了。他起身去看他的画作,但是眼前的一切令他伤心欲绝。他拿起画,叹息不已。“我画的种子怎么不见了?”他喊道。

“这幅画是种子长成参天大树前在土壤里的情景。但现在种子不见了,这幅画也就毫无意义了,而且我再也画不出像第一幅画这样完美的作品了。”艺术家伤心地说。

点最后一次觉得自己无比愚笨。它一直没有意识到,原来自己一开始就不仅仅只是一个点,而且还是一粒种子。种子在初期也许是渺小的,但是谁也无法预言它会长多大,会生出多少美丽的叶子,又会有多少人在下面纳凉。

点跳回画纸上,回到了它当初离开的地方。因为它明白了:自己虽然只是一个小小的点,但是在这幅巨作中却意义重大。