I dream that my Gran is hospitalized in a clinic somewhere in a far away city, I move in a building close by so I won’t leave her alone, but I can never visit her and can only call her at night. My siblings arrive and we have a huge fight because they think I’m awful. I ask why, they say it’s because I don’t care about Gran. Of course I care, I say, I moved all the way here! No you didn’t, they say, you just dreamed about doing it. And indeed we are back home.
We sit down to have dinner and someone knocks at the door. It’s Johnathan Frakes, who’s our neighbor. He’s wearing an apron and oven mittens and carrying some sort of casserole he made for us. I go look in our childhood album for photos of him and Marina Sirtis and give them to him as thanks.
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 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.
I’m late for work, and I don’t even have my coat because I came home for lunch wearing my employee jacket. As I rush out in the cold my sister is sitting in front of the TV watching Sailor Moon.
In town I come across two old ladies, they are hanging outside an ice cream parlor and talking about phones. I stop and invite them to visit my store. They ask me if I’ve already done my homework. I say,
Ma’am, I’m 33.
The store looks exactly like my home, but there are a bunch of desks in the living room, with girls sitting at them working. Boss Lady calls to announce she’s running a fever and will have to stay at home.
I go to my room, where my cat is sleeping. Just then Boss Lady arrives even though she said she wouldn’t, and she looks pale and sick, with bags under her eyes. A coworker whispers to me that she looks horrible, B.L. turns around angrily and asks what we are talking about. I try to look innocent and say we’re just really worried about her. I go back to my job which is apparently cooking, and we are using Bluetooth plates to share recipes.
Now I’m watching (or living?) a movie about an Indian woman flying to Italy to visit her children and grandchildren. Her plane crashes, killing her husband. She is confined in an embassy, where she has a series of wacky hijinks with ladies of all nationalities.
The woman wants to reach her family in northern Italy, but a massive flood is stopping her. Meanwhile her family is watching the flood on the news: the pets recognize their owners’ grandmother on TV and leave on a crazy adventure to try and rescue her.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 