A castle on a hill?
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.
My sister comes back home because she broke up with her boyfriend, I am SO not okay with sharing a room with her again. In her bag there’s a lot of my stuff she must have stolen in the past, like my Bluetooth speaker. I yell that I won’t let her stay with me, and drag her bed away.
I go to my boss to explain why I can’t possibly come back to work even when the lockdown is over. While I wait for her I sit and chat with my old coworkers, when I see at a nearby table M., the girl I had a crush on in elementary school (it was actually middle school IRL, but apparently not so in my dream). M. is as beautiful as I remember, with olive skin, amber hair and deep brown eyes. She’s with her friends and hasn’t noticed me, so I decide I’m gonna wear all pink to look as pretty as I can. I wear a Chibiusa wig, but it’s too heavy and I take it off immediately. My own hair comes off with it, and I’m now a balding middle-aged man.
My sister is at home and we hate each other, what a surprise. She’s making a scene because I took some books she also wanted to read, and I’m so upset that she went straight to tantrum instead of just asking.
The books are about Gentleman Jack, I’m also watching the show and taking part in the casting process. The casting director is rude to one of the actors and I defend him, because she could have said a polite no instead of laughing to his face.
My cousin calls to remind me I’ll be back to work on May 18th. I keep hoping for an extent of the lockdown but it never comes. One of my coworkers says I’m gonna need my strength and shows me what she’s eating, it’s literally a sandwich stuffed with a giant marshmallow.
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.
I visit an ice cream parlor (that also sells shrimp for some reason). There are too many people gathered behind the counter waiting for their turn, the staff is just walking around chatting instead of serving and it takes a lot of waiting before it’s my turn.
Finally my number is called and I ask for two boxes of ice cream for a total of 8 bucks. I’m told I’m not allowed to buy two small boxes, I’ll have to take the big one that costs 17. I get angry and storm out, yelling that their business suck. I get home and furiously start writing a Google review.
My glasses are broken. I look for an old pair, find them in a drawer, there’s a big scratch on one of the lenses. I wish I had gotten a new prescription before all the stores were closed.
There is a bed with a… tent? Rolled over it? I break it and then try to roll it back, even try to glue it but it’s no use. Bud Bergstein and his wife come in the room and are appalled.
It’s Christmas night. I want to be alone and read my Steven Universe comic book but dad is angry, again, he’s making a scene. Like I’ve dreamed to so many times, I pick him up by the armpits and put him outside. He takes the car and leaves, it’s already dawn and nobody knows where he’s gone, and everybody is mad at me.
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.
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.
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.
I’m walking in town, it’s evening and there are way too many people around doing their shopping, hardly anyone is wearing face masks. I am both anxious and angry. I take an escalator going underground, I’m sandwiched between a small crowd and yell,
You are all irresponsible! My grandma is immunocompromised, you are going to kill her!
A woman gets really angry at me. She is short and middle aged, with a bob of brown hair.
The escalator brings me to an underground train station− it’s not the subway though, just regular trains. A black haired girl who’s just arrived with her boyfriend waves at me, I can’t for the life of me recognize her, she must have mistaken me for somebody else. Still I ask her why she’s outside, she says according to the local news the pandemic is a hoax. I give her a long list of more reliable news channels.
Now I’m walking on a grass path in a sunny sea town. I’m still sandwiched between long lines of people and so mad I start yelling again. A bearded man glares at me, he’s wearing a fedora and underneath the brim of the hat his eyes are glowing red. He wants me to prove I’m in any danger, but I can’t. Confused, I crouch behind a wall and stare at my hands: sparkles fly from them. I realize then I’m in a virtual reality and everyone is safe. My mission is to find rainbow daffodils, I start pouring water on every flower I see hoping it’s what I’m looking for.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 