I dream that it’s Christmas and I want to buy myself a Barbie. I go to the supermarket where a salesgirl tries to convince me to buy a printer instead. She says,
In these uncertain times we need more words!
I think I can write I better catchphrase than that.
Then I dream that my dad is watching a horror movie, the killer’s victims are turned into squirrels and pigs. I go to bed and the next morning he’s still there, watching. He looks terrified.
I dream that I’m visiting Disneyland with my mother and sister. It’s already late in the evening and the park is about to close as I get to the little train that circles the whole area. The characters walking around are children wearing creepy, lifeless masks. They look so sad and exhausted I suggest them to unionize. They laugh.
The train ride is short, the park is smaller than what I imagined. We visit Santa Claus land, it’s full of cute animatronics but it feels wrong in July. At the end of the ride there’s a gift shop, I immediately go look for stickers but all the packets are open and half stolen. The young shop employee is blind and he can’t help me. How could Laura Bailey betray me like this? (The place was recommended by her, somehow).
I finally locate an almost intact package and demand a discount. I pay it 4 bucks.
Something about doctor who. Something about notebooks and my sister… Oh I can’t remember anymore
I dream that I’m looking into colleges for when I finish high school. At the same time I’m also my current adult self, so I end up choosing a psychology degree, because it’ll help with my retail job, somehow?? I guess customers do be crazy.
At the same time I’m looking into buying a car, I select an old gray Citroën, extremely boring but it somehow only costs 400 bucks. I can’t even drive but that’s not gonna stop me! I lie in the back seat and smile and smile.
I go home and I find a dozen cats, most of them black. My own cat is conspicuously missing. All the cats are wearing circus clothes. I go fill the bathtub (it’s plastic, transparent blue), they all follow me and jump in the water. I start brushing them with soap and they all look very satisfied, like they’ve been trained for this. There is a white cat with a bleeding injury on her shoulder, and a gray tabby with his legs missing. There also a talking toy astronaut.
Afterward I’m walking home from school and decide to visit the local catholic church. I haven’t been inside the building in years and I don’t like religious institutions on principle, but here I go, and the church is packed so I have to sit on the marble steps.
A bearded man stood up and is now giving a speech a few seats from me. Another guy (I recognize him, it’s a local politician) attacks him, a fist fight ensues. I’m enjoying this more than I can say, these religious types and their hypocrisy! The politician notices I’m chuckling ant attacks me too, scratches my face. I say I’m just an innocent schoolgirl! I’m not though, I’m in my 30s, there’s blood pouring down my face and I’m still laughing.
I dream that I’m watching the Olympics. One of the skaters (blonde, now that I think about it she looks like Tonya Harding) has a name that I find familiar, almost royal. I look her up, she is married to a Count or something, and all her family has died in a horrible fire.
I dream that I’m trying to wake up, I want so badly to wake up but whenever I think I’ve done, it I open my eyes and I know the world I’m in isn’t real.
There’s my sister watching DC cartoons in my room (how dares she?) then I wake up again and I can hear her watching in the living room instead. I drag myself out of bed, find my dad, grab him by the jacket, beg him to wake me up.
I’m still asleep! I tell him frantically. This isn’t real! You have to come to my room and shove me out of bed, it’s the only way!
It doesn’t work. I wake up again and since nothing is real I decide to fly out of the window. I fly over a blue, shiny ocean, I get to watch seagulls up close.
I come across a flying carrier transporting giant containers. I know this is the villains, so I break inside a container using my super strength. I find thousands and thousands of my old books and drawings. I walk around the plane and make people have sex with each other, so I can watch.
Guess what, I dream that I’m at school, but I can’t go to my classroom because there are some students sleeping there. It’s part of their religion, I think. AOC is one of them. As I’m waiting in the street for them to wake up, my neighbor’s mom ask where I hid the presents she bought for her son. Because it’s Christmas, and he’s a child again.
Oh no, I hid the presents in the classroom. The boy sneaks inside to go look for them. I follow, angry at how disrespectful he’s being.
My classmates are waking up and emerging from their sleeping bags. They’ve found the presents I hid, an illustrated book and some Harry Potter stickers. They are teasing each other, asking who the kid’s stuff belongs to. They’re mine! Says the actual kid.
Oh, they say, realizing their mistake. Have you been a good boy?
Yes, he replies. They give him his presents.
I go home and cry because I never get any presents from my parents.
I dream that my whole family is going to the mall, I’m feeling angry and uncomfortable and demand to get out of the car. I wonder around town as I wait for them to come back with pizza.
They bring home a strange green pizza, they say the secret ingredient is herbs. They try to coax me into eating it, but I’m just a child, everyone around the table is looking at me, I’m so hungry but I can’t eat. I run to hide in the balcony to cry and cry.
I dream that I’m repeating the last year of high school. Again. It takes me a while to remember I have a job now and my mornings are booked.
Then I dream that I arrive at space station and visit a big store there. I stumble over my feet and a little boy laughs at me. He’s with his dad. Later the boy has some difficulties with the escalators, I help him out because I’m so generous, the boy follows me around the store and his dad is very worried.
(I was feeling a bit sick yesterday.)
I dream over and over again that I’m telling Boss Lady over the phone that I can’t possibly go to work in the morning, I could be contagious, I have an upset stomach, and hear how sore my throat is! (I’m faking it).
(I suck it up and go to work in the morning.)
I dream that I’m sitting in my old classroom next to M. the runner. As usual I don’t have any notebooks or pens with me. I confess to M. that I haven’t been able to follow a math lesson in years, I cannot understand it and I’ve stopped trying.
A new teacher shows up: she has red hair and a red beard, she’s wearing glasses, a white blouse with colorful umbrella prints and a rainbow skirt. On her arm, a rainbow umbrella. I observe every detail so later I can describe her to my penpal.
Her name is Fruddi and she’s our new sci-fi teacher. There’s something unsettling about her.
She writes a poem on the blackboard in her very neat handwriting. I’m sitting front row resting my chin on my hands, looking bored. She demands why I’m not copying the poem down, I say what’s the point? I’ll google it at home. She rants and rave about today’s lazy youth, I tell her, deadpan,
I am smart and I am confident and you won’t judge me.
She looks at me pensively. She knew a boy once, she says, who was so lazy. He was so lazy he never found a job and stayed home with his momma. This makes me angry, I walk straight to her face and hiss,
Or maybe he was severely depressed.
Fruddi looks dumbstruck. Come with me, she says. She leads me to the school graveyard, old tombstones and overgrown greenery. It looks so pretty I wish I had a camera with me.
Fruddi leads me to her family chapel, where a mummy lays on the stone. This is my boy, she says, taking the body in her arms. I’m so scared and she’s distracted, so I run back to the classroom, but the other kids have left.
I track them to the gym. The boys are playing soccer with famous footballer Christian Vieri. The girls are sitting in a low pool, looking adorable in matching swimsuits and caps. I run to them and relay my scary mummy story. They all console me.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 