I dream that I’m back at work, and both Boss Lady and my cousin are already pissed at me for being slow and overwhelmed. My anxiety rise and rise right to the point I decide to quit, and then a beautiful sense of calm and peace takes over me. Boss Lady is furious. You’re throwing away your life, she says. Look at me, I own a house!
And I saw a beautiful sunset yesterday, I say with a big smile, knowing that there’s something better than money out there. I get up and leave.
Then I dream that I’m going to see a vet about my cat’s gastritis. I travel to a beautiful countryside building that is some sort of university. The doctor is a middle aged woman with short auburn hair, I give her a surprisingly accurate recap of my cat’s issues, she gives me “pills” that look like bulbous roots.
As usual I dream that it’s the last day of school and I’m going to skip my finals because I already got my degree, I just want to go home and watch the latest Supergirl episode.
I’m walking home and now I’m Spiderman, I legit look like Tom Holland under the mask. I can climb walls, I’m not shooting webs because actually I can flap my arms and fly. I meet up with Black Widow and we go investigating in a phone store; it’s a rival store and my old boss sees me in there (she doesn’t look like my actual phone store boss lady, more like a mix of all the employers I’ve had in my life). I want to tell her I didn’t betray the store, I’m here on a secret mission, but she looks the other way and pointedly ignores me.
I dream that (ex) boss lady has opened a supermarket right above the old store; it’s the same damn supermarket, the only kind that exists in my town. I’m hired not at all legally, when I get there I see a dead goat next to the entrance, she looks like she’s sleeping. She’s on sale, obviously.
My cousin is my acting tutor again, being a bitch as usual. Customers are rude as hell. I don’t know how to use the cash register.
I dream that I’m at the beach town, looking for my boss’ son who has been missing for three days. We spot him walking down the street: IRL he’s an old family friend I used to play with as a kid, but in dream I find it normal that he’s also my boss’ son. Now, as an adult, he’s very tall and his eyes are very green. We shake hands awkwardly, then suddenly hug. It feels very nice. He explains he got sick and had to stay at a friend’s house for a while. And he didn’t call his mother?! I think, appalled.
We stop at a cafe, order cappuccinos. The owner is a short, bald man, he tells us he owns three pizza places and five cafes, including one near my building. He can’t remember where though, I ask my whole of family and none of us are able to locate the cafe.
The day after I’m at school, the formerly missing son runs over to me. He’s still very tall, eyes very green. I think I might have a crush. The way the conversation is going, I’m hoping he’s gonna leave his girlfriend for me, but instead he’s leaving her to be with… Peter Pan? The girlfriend is furious, she’s aggressively playing soccer. I try to hug her, but the moment I touch her I start shaking like I’m having a weird alien seizure.
They bring me home, put me to bed, I’m still shaking. I hear footsteps downstairs: I know it’s Peter Pan. Maybe he’s gonna cure me with fairy dust? He steps inside the room, I see he’s not a child, but an adult in a green leafy costume. I’m very disappointed with this casting choice.
There is a white Bull Terrier living in my building, and I dream that the owner asks me to walk her around the parking lot. I’m excited because I love that dog, I take a lot of pictures as a butterfly lands on her big noggin. More neighbors arrive with their dogs, we get into an argument, I’m filming the man yelling at me so twitter can doxx him.
Then I dream that I’m home with my cousin, she’s upset because she realized everyone hates her. It’s because she’s such a bully, I tell her. Boss Lady is there too, scowling at my mother’s very bitter coffee. There’s also a previously unseen Boss Man, he’s quizzing me on American Founding Fathers. He gives me a book about Aaron Burr.
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.
I dream that there’s a phone game I’m really looking forward to play, it’s deceptively simple and cutesy but I’ve been told the plot has a rather dark turn.
Thing is, I can’t possibly concentrate on the game because my life seems to be going fast forward: I blink and a few hours have passed, try as I might I can’t remember what happened in those hours. These flash forward episodes keep happening as I try to go home, when I finally get there years have passed, my dad is old now and has long white hair.
And then time fixes itself, I guess, because next thing I know I’m on my bed playing the game.
The plot is about a young girl with pink hair travelling with her master, a medieval knight. The two are attacked in a village by the game’s bad guy (really well written, engaging backstory for him). I see that he has much more experience points than my characters and a sense of dread washes over me: I watch helpless as the master is brutally murdered and the little girl is dragged to prison.
It’s me languishing in that cell now, after years and years my old friend and neighbor S. rescues me and we go home together. There’s a long carnival parade outside my building, the music is deafening.
I’m once again in my room and my phone is ringing. It’s my cousin. “You can come back to the store for three hours tomorrow,” she says, “but then that’s it, you’re fired.”
“What?! Why?!” I ask, flabbergasted.
They are moving the store to London. And I can’t afford to go with them, I wouldn’t be able to pay rent. The next day I stand on the long bridge that crosses the Atlantic and cry as I look at my cousin, Boss Lady and my coworker S. walking past the gate that goes into London. I beg them not to leave me.
I dream that I overslept and missed work. In the afternoon I go see Boss Lady in her office, pleading for forgiveness. She shows me her address book, where she wrote “FIRED” in big underlined letters. I beg for a second chance, she gives me the book and instruct to copy all her contacts with a fountain pen. My handwriting is absolutely atrocious.
She gives me a second task, I am to go in town and take selfies for a store ad. I step in a clothing store, thinking I should look a little more fashionable, but girly clothes make me uncomfortable. I also consider dying my hair salmon pink, but I feel too ugly even for that.
I decide I’ll just take the picture, even though it’s cloudy and I’m wearing boring gray clothes. I’ll sit in front of a marble wall and look up, smiling. I ask a man to take the picture, and he’s apparently a “pro” because he wants me to look more dynamic to “sell the product”. He instructs me to jump, shoots on his vintage camera and the flash explodes, sending an electrical current down the street.
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.
I have a second job at a hospital, in a virologist office; I’m given a white doctor’s gown to wear, even though I have no idea what I’m doing. My cousin is also there but she is in her element, quick and efficient. There is a big square table in the middle of the room, with many patients sitting around it. Most of them are coughing. I’m terrified I’m gonna catch the virus too and get my parents killed.
My shift finally ends and I meet with my cousin and Boss Lady in an RV, I tell them I will be glad when the emergency is over and I can go back to work at the store. My cousin reminds me with her patented mean voice that I have two free mornings and there’s no reason I shouldn’t spend them at the hospital! It’s too much and I tell them I’m not going back to the hospital, I don’t know why I signed up in the first place, I don’t enjoy it like I enjoy working at the store, also I’m not qualified for it and I’m afraid I’ll get sick. Boss Lady gets utterly mad at me and fires me on the spot, I’m so upset I wake up.
I fall asleep right back asleep and the dreams continue. Now I’m home on the couch, and my mother is telling me my sister is coming back home. Sure enough here she comes with her suitcase, and I’m already su upset I tell her she’s gonna sleep somewhere else because I don’t want her in my bedroom. She’s angry as usual, I tell her I’ve had a horrible day and I don’t care if she’s just arrived home, I’m getting into the shower first. On the couch, my mother is calling all our relatives to tell them I was fired.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 