We find a bunch of children’s toys hidden in a closet in hour home, they are all still packaged and rather old, hidden there since the 70s. They are all strange and ugly, there is a naked Barbie with a giant stomach: when you open it, a little blonde doll with pigtails pops out.
A neighbor gave the toys to my mom to hide until Christmas, but she died shortly after and the toys were long forgotten. We decide now we’re gonna wrap them up for that neighbor’s children.
One of her children sits next to me at school, it’s the pudgy blond boy. I show him the presents and say they are for him and his siblings. What would he like, I ask, maybe colored pencils would be useful?
He asks what I’m gonna give to his older, already adult brother, I say I’ll give the toys to his toddler son instead. He thinks for a moment and say,
The toddler is also my mother’s child, but we will never tell him.
People are school are Benjamin Buttoning, turning younger and younger until there’s nothing left of them. My gang and I investigate: it was the Mayor.
I’m sitting in the back seat of a car with Gran. Her boyfriend is driving, my dad is sitting next to him. Suddenly he turns around to talk to me and dad has to grab to wheel, we nearly crash against a red van. I am so scared and so mad that I get out of the car and refuse to talk to Gran’s boyfriend for the rest of my life.
I’m at school; there is a “problematic” boy and a teacher provokes him into being violent, all so he can expel him. I’m outraged, I know he has a difficult home situation and doesn’t deserve this. I also think I’m in love with him. He’s blonde and not exactly handsome. I tell my teachers that I lost all respect for them.
I walk away with the boy. He has a job at a liquor store just right beside the store I work in, it must have been destiny. I tell him I haven’t worked in months though, because of the lockdown*. I go home and I’m bare footed, I keep walking on dog poop and it’s awful. I come across a group of volunteers cleaning the streets and picking up all the poop and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Back at school the teachers are organizing a D&D game that is also a play. I’m on the losers’ side, and when the play starts our costumes are cheap and ugly while our rivals looks magnificent. We are still going to beat them though.
*Alas, true. But also, how am I allowed to go to school in the dream and not to work??
I’m watching a movie with my parents, it has lesbians and it’s a bit too graphic, I’m embarrassed and I pretend to be so bored that I fall asleep. I can always finish streaming it on my own later.
Now “asleep”, I dream in my dream that I’m a beautiful older actress on set, I’m filming a scene where I have to go down a magnificent marble staircase, but I keep forgetting my lines.
I wake up from the dream in the dream, I’m at a theater with my cousin and another girl, we are watching the same lesbian movie from before. But it’s too long and we sneak out after the first three hours: we tell each other that we can always stream it.
As we walk home I explain them my dream about being an actress, and they are incredulous: they both had the same dream, isn’t that amazing!? Surely a great scientific discovery.
We reach the very same movie set and sneak in a private dressing room. It belongs to Cate Blanchett, and a minute later she walks in with her child. We make up an excuse, say that we just wanted to leave a ring for the little girl; indeed I have a tiny ring with a pearl in my pocket. Cate Blanchett smiles sadly and reveals that she’s being bullied.
The little girl is now asleep in a castle made of ice. We want to rescue her, we search in every room and come across one that is filled with beautifully crafted wooden cribs. You see, the Ice Queen had so many children, but they all died.
An old custodian walks to us. The little girl tells her that she’s a long-lost princess, and we tell her we are wizards. And then my alarm rings and I wake up from the dream for real.
My sister is once again back home and we hate each other. She makes fun of my drawing of an… ancient Greek bust of a lady, I think. It’s too gay, apparently.
Gran is here too, I feel guilty because I’m napping instead of entertaining her. I haven’t seen her in months but she looks great, plump and with hair perfectly died and coiffed. We go out in town, I’m embarrassed because unlike hers, my hair is a mess. We walk next to a store with a big sign outside, it says,
We made these bottles of herbicide and you shouldn’t pour them over your heads, you EFFIN’ MORONS.
Back home, my dad offers to pay for some of my streaming services. I’m very happy and start listing them, then I wake up and realize I’m an adult and will have to pay for my own shit after all.
(Or rather, I was waken up by a phone call and I couldn’t write my dream down right away. And now I can’t remember it! Wait, something about, Christmas, again? And taking pictures? IDK.)
I’m in my parking lot, from the fence I can see the nearby public park. There is a baby fox half hidden in the grass, looking at me with big eyes. I stop to take a picture of it, and I see two teens threatening a child with a metal baseball bat. One of them sees the baby fox and tries to pick it up, the mother (that happens to be a full grown, angry tiger) jumps on them; I hear blood-chilling screams and I see limbs being teared off, I’m so terrified that I run home.
I make sure that my cat is safe, then I go see my neighbor. The little boy from the park is there, the back of his head is missing and my neighbor is carefully bandaging it. I ask if he’s gonna be okay, she says,
“No, he’s gonna die tomorrow, but at least he’s not gonna expect it.”
She then tells me to call the police and explain what happen, I take my phone but someone stops my hand: he’s one of the teens, he has a blond mullet and one arm is missing. He tells me he’s a time traveler on a mission, I need to trust him and not tell anyone about his secret.
I’m filming a reality show with my dad. Our team is behind, we need to complete a recipe before we can be moved to the next location, a beautiful European beach city. I’m supposed to make rice pancakes, but there is cat identical to mine chilling in my bowl! I shoo him off, then painstakingly clean all the cat hair from the white dough. I’m all alone because dad is off driving my aunt home, but finally I make my pancakes.
I’m took not to the beach, but to a gray winter city. I’m not wearing a mask and feeling guilty about it, the production team gives me a dark brown one made of fabric. I get lost and end up in a pharmacy, the girl at the counter is pretty and I start flirting. I say I need to make a deposit and get from my bag an envelope filled to the brim with money. The girl’s eyes get enormous.
(I’m trying so hard to remember because it’s all fuzzy today.) I got two puppies. I want to carry them to a sunny spot in the hallway to take better pictures of them. My cat has one of the puppies and she’s rocking it like it’s a human child.
Then… I’m in a park? A school trip maybe. There is a giant Ferris wheel and I set it on fire with my magic powers. Everyone is impressed.
There’s a group of people taking professional nighttime pictures. I open a gate for them so they can work in a cool urban courtyard, but I don’t stay even though I love photography and I wish so much I could be part of this. In the corner of my eyes I can see their flashes bursting.
I go home and watch a Harry Potter movie. Umbridge is in it, and so unpleasant she actually materializes on my couch and starts bullying my sister and I.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 