Author: Decade Dream Journal

Mysterious Pastries and Paper Hells

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

We have a new kitten in the house, she’s honey-colored and real cute, I try to take pictures but my little sister is always in the way. I’m the middle one of three young sisters with long brown curls.

My old priest comes by to talk us into coming back to church, I’m not home but my two sisters are in their room, already tucked in bed. The older one, who’s about sixteen, asks him for takeaway pizza money, the house has big windows and a mother passing by is scandalized to see the priest bending over a bed, giving money to a half-naked teen. The older sister blackmails the priest into giving her more money because, she threatens him, she took pictures and she’ll release them! The parents come home and she quickly hides a photo album.

Meanwhile I’m in town, it’s a gray, rainy day and a guy named Peace texts me: he wants to meet at a certain pastry store. His coworker demands to know why, she’s a blonde woman with an 80s perm walking next to me. I google the name and find out it was some sort of… fairy tale themed place? My great aunt D., who’s also there, reveals that the store burned down months ago, maybe the guy would like to go to (she points) that pink donuts stand instead?

The truth is, the pastry store has reopened in a new, secret location that only great aunt D. knows, there is a hidden clue embroided with a red thread in her white shirt sleeve. She refuses to show us the sleeve, and later when she’s filming a Youtube video she CGIs it out, just to spite us. Her pettiness doesn’t work because I find the store on my own and I follow her to the nearby sea town just to rub it in her face.

There are too many people around, a crowd cheering on a parade. I try to get away but people surround me, a girl laughs in my face and I yell to keep her germs away. I can’t find my way home.

Now I’m a little boy, and I’m lost, my parents and two sisters have been searching me for years. I walk and walk until I can see the coastline, there are lions on the beach. Eventually I arrive in some sort of carnival town where everything is made of colorful papier-mâché. My family find me as I walk on a stage that is literal hell: there are paper flames and a paper Devil, blond with piercing blue eyes. He recognizes my older sister, the one who took pictures of the priest and is now a prostitute, and tells her she’s doomed.

I offer myself in exchange for her soul. The Devil lifts me by the armpits, looks into my big, childish eyes and can’t find a trace of sin in me. We go back in time and my sister is a pure young girl again, riding her bike with a purple helmet and a big smile.

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Mountain Outing

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I’m with friends and family at our mountain house, we are all sitting around a wooden table. One of the guests is Sharon from FBE, I’m telling her all about my neighbor S. and how he’s like a brother to me. He’s also here with my siblings and they’re all cuddling with kittens, I try to take pictures but my phone layout is all wrong and I don’t know how to fix it.

We see a group of American tourists walking in our vegetable garden and plucking up our food like it’s a quirky, fun thing to do, I hang out from the second floor window and yell but they don’t hear me. I run downstairs and to the garden, I tell them I took pictures of them (a lie, since my phone is messed up). A woman says she’s gonna sue me for that, I say that I’m gonna sue them first for stealing!

Another of our guests is Alex Danvers, she’s my girlfriend but it’s a secret. I feel quite self-conscious comparing myself to her, she’s so gorgeous and I’m chubby, plus my hair has gotten so long since the lockdown started. She assures me I’m beautiful no matter what, then as a romantic gift she transfers a Pokémon to my phone, I don’t know how she managed it since I can’t seem to work my phone at all. I promise her I’ll visit as soon as the travel ban is lifted.

It’s evening and time for our guests to go home, I offer to accompany them. We walk down the mountain path, Alex and I a few steps behind, holding hands and hoping nobody will notice. About halfway to the village we stop at a tiny airport. My guests are going to take a small tourist aircraft, they stand on the landing strip and I can see under the floodlights dozens and dozens of people sick with Covid-19, all lying on stretchers and waiting for their turn to get on the plane.

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Haircut Troubles, Heart Troubles, School Troubles, Fitness Troubles, Troubles Of All Sorts

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I want to shave my head! All the salons are closed and my hair is getting so long it’s driving me insane (this is also true IRL). My dad and I drive to a beach house where Cousin G. is sitting on the patio, doing guess what? Yes, she has a buzzer and it’s giving herself a nice clean shaved cut.

I ask her to do mine too, dad immediately forbids it. She tries to trim my hair a bit instead, I look in the mirror and… she gave me a Mike from Stranger Things haircut! Angry, I grab the razor and shave off a big chunk of hair, now she won’t have any choice but finish the job.

My newly shaved head looks bulgy and knobby and the skin has a grayish zombie hue to it. I look like a cartoon villain! It’s absolutely horrifying, dad says it’s disgusting. Now I’ll have to wear a hat everywhere I go.

I’m dating A., my old best friend from elementary and middle school: I didn’t know she was into girls but she has revealed she’s −in fact− bisexual. I want to spend all my time with her and I’m dreading going back to work once the quarantine is over, because we won’t be able to see each other anymore.

We come back from school hand in hand, I’m wearing an awkward early 2000s polo shirt, the striped, tight-fitting kind. We get to my house and my Gran starts fussing over us; A. sighs and rolls her eyes, she says ,

At the start of every relationship there’s always a grandma butting in.

We are tidying up my room, Gran finds my report card hidden in a drawer and looks very disappointed. I tell her I don’t want to go to school anymore, I have a job, why can’t I just skip my finals and start earning money?!

Ashamed, I go to hide in the kitchen. Mom is there and she’s looking at my legs. Have I been exercising? She asks. I’ve been running a lot, I explain, alone in my bedroom since we can’t go out (also true IRL). I look down at my calves, they are incredible! Muscular and round and toned. They look completely ridiculous in the context of my wimpy, chubby body, I’ll have to diversify my fitness regime.

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Eerie Shopping, Eerie Cooking

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I’m inside a hospital with my mom, the ceilings are too high and the corridors are dark. I need to buy a pair of headphones, we look around for a store and end up in what soon we realize is a well stocked supermarket built entirely inside the hospital. We have a shopping cart now, mom starts picking snacks and coffee, the products are lit with artificial, sterile light and the ceilings are so high you can only see blurry darkness above you. There’s a general feeling of unsettling quietness. We finally come across a pair of headphones, mom says they’re too expensive (they cost a little more than 10 bucks) but I buy them anyway.

We have hired a professional chef to come cook dinner for us, it’s a chubby lady with a 1900s pompadour. My parents order pig stew and she gets to work extremely slowly, and while we wait she shows us a picture of the pig she’s cooking: the animal has a sad look in its expressive eyes, its head is bowed under the foot of a man standing triumphantly above it. I decide I’m not gonna eat the pig, even though the finished product looks juicy and smells really good. I order fried prawns instead and I watch as she tosses them into boiling oil along with big blue raspberries.

I never get to eat any of it, the morning after I try to remember why and I see myself as a young woman cheated on by her husband: to get over my sadness I end up sleeping with a beautiful lady guest who wants to recruit me as a spy. Now I’m so hungry I can’t stop crying, I start tossing things and yelling at my poor sister. I also need to pee so badly.

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Now I Really Want To Eat Fish For Some Reason

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

Even though all restaurants are closed, my dad has heard of a place where you can get fish takeaway. All the family piles up in our small car and we pass around the paper where dad has scribbled down the menu, my pick is roasted prawns. We arrive just in time for dinner, in the dark we can see a truly long line of people standing too close to each other: it’s dangerous, but the air smells so good and we all get in line anyway. A red-haired woman is talking and laughing with a friend, she’s a too close to my face and I yell at her. While I’m busy arguing my family has forgotten all about me and is already eating.

We drive back home and now my aunt V. (rest in peace) is with us. It’s a simple conversation, something about how good I am with tweezers, but it feels lonely and bittersweet.

We arrive home and now they are planning to take my sister out for desserts, I want to join but my parents say it’s too risky. I go out on my own, it’s raining and all the stores are deserted. I feel guilty about not wearing a face mask, but I want to get some exercise so I start running up and down a crosswalk, ignoring the traffic lights because there is not a soul around.

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New Neighbors

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

IRL I live inside one of two twin buildings standing next to each other. In my dream I walk to the other building and ring a doorbell. I’m welcomed in an apartment that is structured exactly like mine, to the point it’s creepy; two women just moved in, mother and daughter, and the place looks pretty rough, there are holes in the walls. The mother tells me they can’t contact the administrator, they must have the wrong number, but even if they could, she can’t afford any repairs.

I stop to look at a framed picture on the wall, a little girl in a yellow raincoat that could easily be me. I decide to call my dad for help, and he’s already at the door, smiling a big, reassuring smile. He calls the administrator and sort things out so that the women won’t have to pay a cent. I tell them they’re welcome to visit us any time, but they say there is no twin building outside: puzzled, I look out the window and see that we are behind Downton Abbey’s castle. I look around for my building and finally spot it on the horizon, it’s been painted bright red.

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I’m As Confused As You

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I’m watching “The Favorite”, it’s set in modern times and I’m so engrossed I feel like I’m also physically in the movie. In the first scene I’m walking in town and holding hands with Noémie Merlant: she is wearing black pants and her hair is short, she’s so beautiful. She whispers sweet nothings in my ear, I’m so happy I could faint.

We stop at a large fountain and she steps in and out the basin. It’s only for a few seconds, but I know − because I’ve read the plot of the movie − that during those seconds she lived for several hours in a parallel universe. Rebel Wilson is with me because apparently she’s gonna be my sidekick. She also steps in the fountain and I follow her.

Rebel and I walk into the new reality and I see around me signs of Noémie’s presence, like a wooden house that she obviously built. Olivia Colman arrives to greet us, she is a Good Queen and her hair is short and curly. She smiles at me and calls me “lover”.

We find a new fountain and jump to yet another reality: in this one Olivia Colman is Evil, long haired and she eats children. I also happen to be a little boy now, I’m no longer watching a movie but reading/living through a story book. I manage to appear back in my town for a moment, where I float in front of Ted Danson and beg him for help.

Ted breaks into a beauty parlor and tries every sink and toilet until he finds the right portal. He arrives at the Evil Queen’s 18th century palace, where he meets with his very own evil lookalike. Everybody is confused, but Ted has a plan: he claims the other one is the impostor! Don’t believe him? Check his emails! Indeed Evil Ted (who has long hair too) has been writing compromising emails, he’s arrested and in the confusion Original Ted, Rebel Wilson and I manage to escape back to our world.

It’s not over yet, Evil Olivia Colman has followed us. As her head slowly emerges from the beauty parlor sink, we get ready to fight.

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Family Trip

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I’m at gran’s house, my siblings and my neighbor S. are with me. I’m playing the Sims and really getting into the game, but alas I need to turn off the computer and go home. We all climb into the car, I have some trouble closing the door.

We stop at an old beautiful building, something like a renaissance villa. There’s a comic book exhibit inside, we all take some time to visit it and at the end I ask my sister,

Does every artist really have to illustrate King James Bible at some point?

She says yes.

We arrive in town, outside the park there is a policewoman asking for everyone’s permission slips. She’s angry at us for being all out together, and she’s right, I think, that’s quite odd during a lockdown, what were we thinking? She finally allows us to go home, and as I start walking I notice that both my siblings and neighbor S. are turning into children, like we used to be when we played all together in this very park. My brother grins at me and jumps up and down. His hair is blond just like back then, and everything is beautiful.

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