I dream that is my last day of work (it is!) and I don’t even care anymore, I just chill with the girl who’s gonna replace me.
On my way home I jump to a parallel dimension. I don’t want to spend any money, but I see a stray cat with one eye missing and buy some minced meat for it.
I’m in my living room with my sister, and it seems like we have more pets than previously accounted for. I feel guilty because I’ve always poured all my love into my IRL cat and ignored all these other animals! I’m a monster.
There’s a poodle, its white curly fur all dirty like we never bathed him. There’s another cat, a tabby, and an orange robot monkey. The tabby brings a bowl of food to the monkey, who makes a disgusted face. I say pointedly,
Be kind!
The monkey obeys me and starts eating, but I realize there’s mostly hay and rocks in the bowl and take it away. My mother is sitting on the couch, she asks if she can have it. I say no, it’s dirty and the animals ate in it. She says it doesn’t matter, she can have her floss directly from the box.
I ask her if she’s really eating floss, she says,
Yes, the minty one. Can you bring it? It’s on my nightstand.
My sister is being insufferable as always, to shut her up I turn her into a cat. And not just any cat, but my very own black, grumpy kitten. I put this creature that is both my sister and my cat in her carrier (she bites me through the bars) and bring her to the vet.
I meet my friend F. there, he tells me it’s not much, but he put some free menstrual pads aside for me. I thank him warmly. As I’m sitting in the waiting room though, two men steal my pads. I confront them with all my wit and sarcasm and humiliate them into giving my pads back.
My breakfast toasts are wrong: instead of mozzarella, they are filled with slices of pale, unripe pumpkin . There’s also a bread roll on the table, it has peanut butter sticks inside; my brother grabs it and takes a bite, I yell because the sticks are actually cat food, but it’s too late, he has eaten the bread.
It’s time to walk to school! I’m running through a meadow because I’m late. On my way I meet two unnamed voice actors and their dog, I explain to them I’m going to “phone school“.* I finally reach the building and it’s not my IRL High School: it’s a ~technical school that I apparently decided to transfer to. Inside there is a massively high ceiling and a lot of stairs moving and intertwining, a bit like Hogwarts but much more airy and modern.
My class is in the upmost right corner, I hurry up the stairs and I’m very relieved to realize I’m only five minutes late. The teacher pops his head from the door, he’s my usual philosophy prof but there’s something different this time: he has a big smile, like he’s enjoying himself, for once. He gives me a pair of scissors and tasks me with cutting out the tags from his sweater. But wait, all my classmates are teenagers, I realize with a sudden jolt. I’m an adult in my 30s! How am I supposed to get along with them!?
Back home, I boot up The Sims. Since I have all the expansion packs, I find some oriental clothes and objects. I create two Sims, an old Chinese woman and her daughter, give them musical instruments, and listen to them playing in the snow for a while.
*My new job is indeed at a phone store, but of course I’d still be stuck in high school in some way.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 