I dream that I’m trying to hijack a building with my cousin and the whole thing feels like a deja vu. We ride up to the 45th floor, then pose as workers and hang posters on the elevator saying it’s broken and to use the other one. So far so good. We get in the elevator and my cousin pushes a button. “We’re supposed to be going up, not down,” I say. “I want to see the ocean,” she replies.
On the 44th floor there’s a vast open space covered in luxury swimming pools, it’s a sight to behold. The residents are all over, laughing, playing, swimming. We pass a waterfall, it’s artificial but it feels like the real thing; we keep walking, and I say, “Where are you going? We’re on a rooftop!” My cousin silently points at the stone path we’re walking on, and indeed we’re somewhere different. It starts raining.
I dream that I’m going to visit my Gran, and that’s already making me uncomfortable because we should be isolating from the pandemic. I run into an old schoolmate’s mom, she’s not wearing a mask, a can only stand in horror as she grabs me and kisses both my cheeks in greeting. How could you! I yell. She doesn’t seem to understand what she did wrong.
At Gran’s place, I’m watching a TV show, or maybe playing a video game, or possibly living in it? It’s about a little girl who can speak with ghosts, she’s always haunted by the spectral figures of her dead parents. She’s currently sitting in her classroom, her teacher is John Mulaney. Then she goes home skating, she runs into a murderer running away from the police. Why didn’t you call us? The police demand. She doesn’t know how to explain that, due to her psychic powers, cell phones don’t work around her.
She arrives at Gran’s place, where we find dozens and dozens of single shoes and slippers. I try to find a logical explanation for it, but we all know ghosts are dumping them. The little girl avoids mirrors because she can always see reflected in them someone who just died and is being sent to hell. It’s like a white, crumbly room that goes into the unknown. We decide to explore hell as well, we take an elevator and arrive at the white room. We step inside.
I’m back at school. The teacher is a woman, she looks a bit like a jerk; she asks how everyone’s internships are going, I raise my hand and explain that all internships are on hold until April 4th because of Coronavirus*. The teacher says don’t worry, she’ll find an activity we can all do together in the afternoons. I’m appalled because I was really looking forward to some rest and free time.
All the kids take a service elevator to the basement, it’s just four metal bars connecting a platform to a thin roof and it looks very unsafe. I take the stairs instead. I reach my class and we all sit in front of a clown, who starts entertaining us blowing swirls of smoke inside giant soap bubbles.
The blond kid sitting next to me starts punching my arm. He must be the school bully, but he grows to respect me once he realizes my arms are so strong after working at the store. The clown scolds us for talking instead of paying attention, then he says with a scorned tone that there’s someone in the room who doesn’t believe in his magic. I think he’s talking about me, but instead he points at Sabrina Spellman, who’s sitting behind me. The clown invites her to try his tricks, she blows a giant soap bubble and the smoke inside it is shaped like perfect little skulls.
When it’s my turn, I simply say I don’t smoke and up and go back home. I meet an old woman at the gate, she asks me if I’m new in the building, I say I’ve been living here my entire life. Then she asks if I have any kids, and for who knows what reason I choose to lie and say yes. She asks what their names are, I answer with my and my brother’s names. She says they sound familiar.
I step inside the building and the doors are all wrong. I walked into a maze again and by now I know it’s because I must be dreaming. I’m not gonna find my way home unless I wake up, but how am I gonna do that? I have with me a package just delivered to my brother, I start reading out loud the list of items inside the box, and just like that I wake up in my bed (not really, I’m still asleep, but in the dream I’m convinced I woke up). I decide I must have sleep-walked from the school to my room, and that’s a great trick to have up my sleeve.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 