Routine Anxieties

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

It’s raining as I walk home from high school. I’m wearing bell bottom jeans and (just like during my actual high school days!) the hems got all wet and muddy. Chatting along with me there’s my old classmate M., a bony girl with freckles and bovine eyes; she can’t believe we are already seniors and our school days are almost over, do I know what I’m gonna do next? Yes, I’m gonna apply to [IRL store I work at] and, I brag, I’ll have to work until 7:30 P.M. She says she’s gonna get off even later and I’m jealous, she’s always been smarter than me!

After lunch I get restless, I’m already late for my old philosophy teacher’s class, why do I always miss it? What if he never lets me graduate?! I go to pee on the balcony (it’s raining and everything is already wet so, I figure, why not?) and run off, but halfway to the school I once again remember that I’m an adult with a job and I don’t have to worry about graduating anymore.

I decide to go shopping with Gran instead. As usual, there’s too many people inside the supermarket and nobody is wearing a mask, I’m really concerned about Gran’s safety, so I drag her outside as it starts drizzling again. She’s carrying a plastic bag with a pink pullover inside, there is no place to store it though, so she hangs it from a branch that’s leafless and skeletal against the gray sky. I’m afraid somebody is gonna steal the bag and when she’s not looking I take it and bring it home, for safekeeping.

There Were No Dreams Last Night

Posted on May 4, 2020May 4, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I mean, I’m sure there were, I just can’t remember them sometimes.

Not All Dogs Go To Heaven

Posted on May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m watching a TV show, a comedy I think, the main character is played by Steve Carell. He needs to find a certain dog, for very important reasons I assume, but the dog has died and gone to hell.

Steve Carell and his friends travel to hell, which looks like an old church turned into dog pound, perched on the side of a mountain cliff. Steve is sad, but he promises he’s gonna be okay as long as he sees no dogs suffering. The (rather normal looking) demon lady who guards hell says she can work with that, and has the group wait outside for a few minutes.

The group walks through some long corridors. They see an ugly man asleep on a pillow, his face red and wrinkly: the demon lady explains he’s actually a pug they transfigured to not upset Steve Carell. He has walked ahead and they hear his panicked voice yelling,

Guys, I’ve already seen three dogs!!

They reach a room bathed in beautiful sunlight, inside there’s a Golden Retriever with a kind face; he sings a mournful song about having nibbled and peed where he shouldn’t have, like a real naughty boy. Steve Carell is crying, and the dog hugs him. I notice the animal is looking to the side, no doubt to his handler with a treat ready for him. What a good actor, I say to myself, and what a good boy!

When You Hate Your Family But Quite Like Pretty Girls

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I hear my siblings whispering, I know they’re plotting something. They bully and gaslight me and my father joins in, so I have no choice but run away from home. I can never come back.

It’s soon lunch time and I’m hungry, I find and open diner and order pizza, I’m asked to sit in a corner because of social distancing measures. The owner rolls her eyes at my pizza and says next time I should order a proper meal; I feel humiliated.

I call my therapist because I badly need some help, the voicemail says I’ll find her at the local park after 6 P.M., sitting in a plexiglass box for, you guessed it, social distancing. But at this point I can’t even remember what I was mad about, and I go back home.

My sister and cousin are forcing me to compete in a quiz show, filming takes place in a basement several floors below a local supermarket. We are brought to a room where a bunch of girls are getting ready, putting their makeup on etc. My sister teases me for never wearing makeup, she says I’m insecure and a coward.

I decide I’m not gonna compete after all, I walk in the middle of the room and announce to everyone that I’m quitting. The producers are saying I simply can’t, I should actually be the first to go on stage, but I take the escalator and leave.

One of the producers is following me up to the ground floor, she is a pretty woman with a black bob, green clothes and triangular eyelashes. She is telling me that I could win a lot of money, don’t I want money to buy… (she looks around in the dark of the abandoned supermarket floor) a Venetian mask? I say I’m not interested.

As I walk home I’m joined by my cousin, who was kicked out of the quiz show in record time. The woman in green is still following us, she says it’s because her car is parked nearby, but she looks sad and worried and I feel guilty because maybe she’s gonna lose her job because of me. I take her by the hand (so soft!) and ask her if she would like to stop somewhere for tea. She looks me in the eyes and smile. She really is beautiful.

Anyway I Miss My Grandma

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

The lockdown is finally over and I’m getting ready to go see Gran for the first time in two months, when the doorbell rings: it’s my uncles, and with them here comes Gran herself: the tip of her hair is still auburn but the roots have turned white. I’m too afraid to go hug her, so I sit a few feet away and quietly cry with relief in my dinner plate.

I find myself in the past, specifically in the remote year 2017. I’m on a train but I have no ticket and very little money, so I sneak out at the next stop. I land in a city I don’t know and I start looking around blindly for a hotel: maybe I can afford to stay for just one night? Or, if I get lost, I can always wake up from this dream, I reason with myself.

My hair (I have long hair, for some reason) gets stuck in the red button of a little girl’s blouse. She invites me in her house, the mother arrives and is alarmed to find a stranger, but after I explain the situation she lets me free myself from her daughter’s button, then she offers me dinner and a shower. She’s not rich, she explains, but she’s having a party tonight and she could use some more guests around the table.

As I sit down to eat, I start receiving panicked texts from my father. But wait, they are not texts, it’s my alarm ringing. And I wake up.

Trying My Best To Explain A Complicate Dream

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m studying at a friend’s, there’s a guy, a girl and I. The guy gives me a set of cards, yellow, blue and red, each representing a paranormal encounter; I try to decipher them like one would a math problem.

I ask the guy what the colors represent, are they emotional or purely descriptive? He says they are very emotional, then he tells me about his past: he was one of a set of twins, so cute and talented they starred in a famous Christmas movie. When his brother was murdered, the guy started to have visions of him.

(The girl listens to the story and she’s inspired into having a paranormal encounter of her own, she finds herself in a forest where she has a lightsaber duel with old Ben Kenobi. Her lightsaber is green.)

The guy is happy with my questions and writes on a report that I have

The mind of a Kantian and the luck of a skeptic.

I’m not quite sure what that means, but I’m so flattered I underline his words with my pencil.

Playing Ball

Posted on April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

An Australian class and a teacher that wants to teach them how to play basketball professionally. The tall black kid protests that, and I quote,

I have repeated year four four times!

That’s why you’re gonna destroy the other teams, you’re bigger than them, says the teacher.

The kids all live on an island, inside a tower with spiral staircases and blue walls. One day at practice, the pretty girl of the group trips and falls; the tall kid moves at superhuman speed, so fast that nobody can see him, and rearranges her limbs to a safer position. The girl falls on her butt and the teacher cries,

See?! This is how you all should to it!

Images

Posted on April 28, 2020April 28, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

The building is a maze again, this time I know what to expect. I have sex with Lady Gaga. I ask my cousin to drive me to the mall, the black one that doesn’t exist. We fly on brooms, and we have to remember that space and distance are made up. Two Asian children playing golf.

The Old Woman With A Face Like Art

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m convinced I’m having a lucid dream, and I’m not, really, I’m just walking around, but I feel in total control. I choose my path between beautiful valleys and lively villages, I see naked peasants happily working their fields.

I take an old woman by the hand: she has a kind, innocent face, and she follows me with the utmost trust. I’m afraid she’ll be lost and confused in the city so far away from her home, so I lead her into an old church, hoping it will look familiar. The walls inside are covered with beautiful frescoes, and as we sit on a wooden bench her face looks like art too, maybe an oil portrait, her wrinkles rosy and bathed in soft light, so different from anyone else’s face.

The priests and cardinals inside the church stand up in their fancy black and red dresses, they angrily debate about things that shouldn’t matter. The old woman stands up too, a light in her eyes, and I know she’s about to teach them an important lesson.

I wake up.

DECADE DREAM JOURNAL