I dream that the yellow building opposite my window got demolished, because a murder happened inside it? I have slept through the whole thing, when I wake up and look out the window I’m really confused. In place of the building there’s a small garden, dark and overgrown, with a tall children’s slide in one corner
Tag: gardens
I Have A New Neighbor!
I dream about prepping for my day at school, putting all my books and notebooks in my bag, determined to find out my class schedule this time— (Why do I keep dreaming about this?! As far as I can remember I had no problem keeping track of my schedule back then.)
(At this point I’m woken by my new South American neighbor, who is AS USUAL barking at her phone on the balcony next to my bedroom window. It’s 7:20 of a Sunday morning.)
I fall asleep again and I dream that I go knocking on the woman’s door. I’m welcomed in by the two sisters who used to live here twenty years ago: they are adults now and we chat amicably, catching up on our lives.
I finally reach the garden (how is there a garden inside an apartment?) where my new neighbor is standing. In my broken Spanish, I try to beg her to please, please stop screaming at her phone. She takes my hand and tells me her name is Marisol and she misses her family very much. Then we have to run away because the garden fills with smoke as the building catches fire. A group of firefighters that are actually child acrobats rush in after us.
By now I’m trying to wake myself up because I’m aware I’ve overslept. I have no luck as I keep finding myself inside another nested dream. Since nothing is real anyway, I decide to go outside and make people strip naked.
Work Dilemmas
I go to the store as usual in the morning, but there are new coworkers I’ve never seen and all the desks are occupied. I sit on a small chair on the side, my boss sits next to me, opens her planner to scribble something, and I see she’s been testing fountain pens on a page. Enthusiastically I whip out my own journal and show her the pens I’ve been testing myself.
Then I remember I’m supposed to go to the job center and I’m already forty-five minutes late*. I sprint over and the building has been turned into an oriental garden. The employee I was supposed to meet invites me into his bamboo house and tells me it’s his birthday.
I’m at work again. I’m sorting out files when I noticed we’ve been selling bombs and missiles to our customers. I’m anxious about it, but they tell me it’s okay, that’s how life works and there’s nothing I can do about it.
*I did have an appointment IRL this morning.
Lonely
I’m once again with Boss Lady and my cousin G. It’s a sunny day, we are in a garden and I’m presented with a square wooden drawer with a bunch of holes on each side. My job is to insert a socket wrench in every hole and rotate the wooden panels until a certain font is selected.
There are high school kids playing volleyball nearby. My cousin wants to join them, I remind her she’s an adult now and can’t compete with them. The kids are mocking me, I become very upset.
Back home my sister also teases me about the giant tree house I built, with a big green vine to make climbing easier. I’m still so upset I yell at her, and then yell at her boyfriend. I tell him he’s an asshole, he can see how my sister is treating me, how she’s treating her whole family and he never says anything to her.
Back in my room, alone, I start crying. I whisper to myself that I only yelled because I’m so lonely.
Magical Night at the Lake
My boss is giving out birthday presents, I knew it, I knew she was generous! One of my coworkers unwraps a black console, and I gasp: is it… a Playstation 2? No, it’s a cheap Made in China rip-off. I unwrap mine, there is an old SNES inside. I already own one, though! Not to mention, the Super Mario cartridge in it is fake.
On my way home I stop at the local toy store, I’m planning to buy some toys to entertain bored children at work*. I choose a wooden truck, a white plushie and pink plastic goggles. The man at the register says it’s gonna be 18 bucks, I’m taken aback because I only have 20 in my wallet. It should be 12, max! The man points out I’ve taken two pair of goggles instead of one. I confess I can’t pay that much money and walk out the store.
At home my dad is opening some boxes that were just delivered. Inside there are black-covered Penguin books for my brother, we tease him but he insists he won them. I pick up one, Anne of Green Gables, and decide to enter a contest with it.
The night of the contest I present an essay on the book alongside a cake inspired by it: it’s lemon cream, honey and cookies. There is a big ceremony happening in a hotel on Lake Como, and all my family came along. It’s a summer night, the hotel garden is green and glistening, all the guests are dressed fancy and laughing pleasantly. I want pizza so I venture outside, order some from an intercom outside a big yellow gate. More of my family arrives and I find out they are serving pizza at the hotel, I wasted my money. A movie is being showed in the garden.
I win the contest, alongside three more kids from around Europe. The morning after we are gathered for a photoshoot on the lake. I choose what to wear, gray pants and a gray waistcoat to go with it, I feel very elegant. My hair is red, short and unruly, it gets bushier and bushier with the humidity until I look like Annie Warbucks.
Each of us is given a sign saying our name, our age and the title of our essay. Mine says I’m 18, older than the other kids. We walk in the lake and are told to hold our signs up and smile the wildest, happiest smile. Our pictures are taken. I review them later and they are not bad, I’m jealous about the professional camera’s quality compared to my phone’s. There’s also a photo of the cake I baked perfectly framed against the lake.
I want to send some of these pictures to my penpal C., but I decide I look too bad. Not the ugliest, because with my puffy hair I look a bit like my Grandma, but I don’t want C. to think I’m anything else than gorgeous. Instead I write her about a chapter from Anne of Green Gables that I really liked.
In it Anne is sitting in a wooden train car with her mom and newborn brother. A black woman walks in with a little boy, who is crying because he was too late to enter the book contest. The woman is about to get mad, when Anne’s mom asks his name. “Chemical,” says the boy.
“Well, I’m not gonna call you that, it sounds like a pill.”
Anne’s mother tells him everyone is tired and sad sometimes, he just needs to take a deep breath. The boy’s mom is so moved hearing these words that she takes the baby from the other woman’s arms and start breastfeeding him.
*I actually want to do this IRL.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 