I’m visiting my friend C. and my great-aunt is also there for some reason, I wonder how the hell she got to another country but she seems unperturbed, just having lunch with the family.
C.’s mom asks me to glue a big ball (a light, maybe?) to the ceiling. They also send me out for groceries. I’m very uncomfortable because I’m not familiar with their town, I end up snapping at them.
A group of children is missing, they are all hiding inside an old theater. An orchestra is also there. I’m watching them, and the whole scene in front of my eyes is in black and white.
We find a bunch of children’s toys hidden in a closet in hour home, they are all still packaged and rather old, hidden there since the 70s. They are all strange and ugly, there is a naked Barbie with a giant stomach: when you open it, a little blonde doll with pigtails pops out.
A neighbor gave the toys to my mom to hide until Christmas, but she died shortly after and the toys were long forgotten. We decide now we’re gonna wrap them up for that neighbor’s children.
One of her children sits next to me at school, it’s the pudgy blond boy. I show him the presents and say they are for him and his siblings. What would he like, I ask, maybe colored pencils would be useful?
He asks what I’m gonna give to his older, already adult brother, I say I’ll give the toys to his toddler son instead. He thinks for a moment and say,
The toddler is also my mother’s child, but we will never tell him.
I’m watching a movie with my parents, it has lesbians and it’s a bit too graphic, I’m embarrassed and I pretend to be so bored that I fall asleep. I can always finish streaming it on my own later.
Now “asleep”, I dream in my dream that I’m a beautiful older actress on set, I’m filming a scene where I have to go down a magnificent marble staircase, but I keep forgetting my lines.
I wake up from the dream in the dream, I’m at a theater with my cousin and another girl, we are watching the same lesbian movie from before. But it’s too long and we sneak out after the first three hours: we tell each other that we can always stream it.
As we walk home I explain them my dream about being an actress, and they are incredulous: they both had the same dream, isn’t that amazing!? Surely a great scientific discovery.
We reach the very same movie set and sneak in a private dressing room. It belongs to Cate Blanchett, and a minute later she walks in with her child. We make up an excuse, say that we just wanted to leave a ring for the little girl; indeed I have a tiny ring with a pearl in my pocket. Cate Blanchett smiles sadly and reveals that she’s being bullied.
The little girl is now asleep in a castle made of ice. We want to rescue her, we search in every room and come across one that is filled with beautifully crafted wooden cribs. You see, the Ice Queen had so many children, but they all died.
An old custodian walks to us. The little girl tells her that she’s a long-lost princess, and we tell her we are wizards. And then my alarm rings and I wake up from the dream for real.
I’m in my parking lot, from the fence I can see the nearby public park. There is a baby fox half hidden in the grass, looking at me with big eyes. I stop to take a picture of it, and I see two teens threatening a child with a metal baseball bat. One of them sees the baby fox and tries to pick it up, the mother (that happens to be a full grown, angry tiger) jumps on them; I hear blood-chilling screams and I see limbs being teared off, I’m so terrified that I run home.
I make sure that my cat is safe, then I go see my neighbor. The little boy from the park is there, the back of his head is missing and my neighbor is carefully bandaging it. I ask if he’s gonna be okay, she says,
“No, he’s gonna die tomorrow, but at least he’s not gonna expect it.”
She then tells me to call the police and explain what happen, I take my phone but someone stops my hand: he’s one of the teens, he has a blond mullet and one arm is missing. He tells me he’s a time traveler on a mission, I need to trust him and not tell anyone about his secret.
I’m filming a reality show with my dad. Our team is behind, we need to complete a recipe before we can be moved to the next location, a beautiful European beach city. I’m supposed to make rice pancakes, but there is cat identical to mine chilling in my bowl! I shoo him off, then painstakingly clean all the cat hair from the white dough. I’m all alone because dad is off driving my aunt home, but finally I make my pancakes.
I’m took not to the beach, but to a gray winter city. I’m not wearing a mask and feeling guilty about it, the production team gives me a dark brown one made of fabric. I get lost and end up in a pharmacy, the girl at the counter is pretty and I start flirting. I say I need to make a deposit and get from my bag an envelope filled to the brim with money. The girl’s eyes get enormous.
I’m looked in the bathroom and I have a toddler and a baby with me, they’re brothers. The older one is two and his name is William, he has pooped on his brother’s face and his diaper has flown out the window, so I’m scrambling to get them both cleaned. I end up having to call my mother for help, she’s very surprised at how I seem to have acquired two children. We carry them to my bedroom and there are two birds trapped inside, flapping around madly, a pigeon and a seagull.
I need a bottle of frozen water, there is a vending machine on the street outside my house but it isn’t working. I go look for a freezer in my basement but I get lost, my cat is with me and we run when we see the landlord is chasing us. I hide in an apartment that looks like it’s been the set of a psychological thriller. Then I finally reach home and run inside my room, I put headphones on and hit play on a discman just as the landlord walks in. I’m now a teen boy with curly hair, the landlord takes me under his wing and becomes the father figure I never had.
There’s a tweet trending, it’s an old Russian farmer complaining about her land owner. She films a video where the land owner is seen on a tractor destroying her fields and cackling like a villain. I’m very confused because the video is stop motion and obviously fake, but nobody else on Twitter seems to notice.
I remember a collection of chocolate pralines, each with unique flavors like chewing gum, very American. They belong to my brother, but I’m also a little orphan and I’m trying to steal them with the other children at the orphanage, hoping the nuns won’t catch us.
Then I dream that we have guests over for dinner, the aunt and uncle I hate, and the next morning there is poop all over mine and my sister’s floors.
I can’t remember much, something about children swapping bodies of killers and criminals to solve conflicts and save the day. I’m worried about all those criminals that found themselves in the children’s bodies, wouldn’t their families be in danger?
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.
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,
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.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 