I dream that I’m repeating the last year of high school. Again. It takes me a while to remember I have a job now and my mornings are booked.
Then I dream that I arrive at space station and visit a big store there. I stumble over my feet and a little boy laughs at me. He’s with his dad. Later the boy has some difficulties with the escalators, I help him out because I’m so generous, the boy follows me around the store and his dad is very worried.
I dream that my high school finals are getting near and I haven’t studied or anything, I’m terrified of what my father will say when I fail miserably.
On the day of the final I go to class and I’m assigned a comic book to draw. The assignment is too damn long and I tell the teacher I can’t possibly finish it in time. “Am I not human?” I ask in tears.
“Yes,” he says, “but you’ll never be special.“
For a classic recurring dream of mine, it’s the last day of high school and I’m older than my classmates because I failed the year a few times. I’m an awkward loser, but the other kids have grown fond of me because they’re convinced I’m a boy…?
On my way home −not wearing a mask and feeling guilty about it− I meet my late Grandpa P., he’s very sweet and caring, unlike in real life, as he earnestly asks me about my job prospects. Under my arm I carry a goodbye present my classmates have left me with, a wooden box full of tweezers, razors, nail clippers and other grooming tools. I find it all so very useful and I want to thank them, but the generic messaging app on my phone doesn’t seem to work.
It’s raining as I walk home from high school. I’m wearing bell bottom jeans and (just like during my actual high school days!) the hems got all wet and muddy. Chatting along with me there’s my old classmate M., a bony girl with freckles and bovine eyes; she can’t believe we are already seniors and our school days are almost over, do I know what I’m gonna do next? Yes, I’m gonna apply to [IRL store I work at] and, I brag, I’ll have to work until 7:30 P.M. She says she’s gonna get off even later and I’m jealous, she’s always been smarter than me!
After lunch I get restless, I’m already late for my old philosophy teacher’s class, why do I always miss it? What if he never lets me graduate?! I go to pee on the balcony (it’s raining and everything is already wet so, I figure, why not?) and run off, but halfway to the school I once again remember that I’m an adult with a job and I don’t have to worry about graduating anymore.
I decide to go shopping with Gran instead. As usual, there’s too many people inside the supermarket and nobody is wearing a mask, I’m really concerned about Gran’s safety, so I drag her outside as it starts drizzling again. She’s carrying a plastic bag with a pink pullover inside, there is no place to store it though, so she hangs it from a branch that’s leafless and skeletal against the gray sky. I’m afraid somebody is gonna steal the bag and when she’s not looking I take it and bring it home, for safekeeping.
I’m at a hair salon inside the mall; my hair is big and bushy, Hermione Granger style, and I desperately need a haircut. The place’s owner is a scrawny guy with an evil smirk, he shaves off a patch of hair in the back of my head, so it looks like I’m going bald, and then kicks me out. I’m desperate because I’ll have to shave everything off now.
I wake up in the morning to find my sister sitting on the living room floor, I’m enraged because she’s supposed to be at her own house, I tell her that she’s not gonna sleep in my room. She locks herself in the bathroom and I start banging on the door because I’m late for school. I don’t know if I went to school at all these past days, I can’t remember. Then I realize that’s because I went to work instead.
I arrive in my classroom and I’m greeting by the usual philosophy teacher, he announces we are going on a school trip. A moment later I’m sitting at lunch in a hotel dining room, so I wonder how I got there if I was at home with my sister in the morning. We are given free food samples, they come in small packages and one of them is pink and says “tuna for cats”.
We are brought bowls of veggie soup, I’m about to dig in mine when another girl opens one of her little packages and pours some truly nasty stuff in my bowl, so now I can’t eat anymore. As I wait for the others to finish I happen to fart; it’s just a little toot, but there’s no hiding it so I say “Sorry” out loud. One of the teachers says,
There are some people that never apologize, and that’s bad. But there are also people who apologize when it’s too late and the room already stinks.
We are shown a video taken from a security cam in the city of Venice, where we were apparently visiting that morning. I see myself on the screen as the chubby teen I used to be in high school, I’m reading a book and some bad guys steal it. I chase them down some tunnels, I cringe watching myself because I run so awkwardly.
Now we are led outside, where we see a beautiful pink sunset against the mountains. I take some pictures of the sky and of some local kids that are doing somersaults. A group of pigs are crossing a little fence, they are also pink and shiny and beautiful. They are led by a girl and her grandfather, who is a white haired detective Columbo. I take pictures of the pigs too and my teacher says I shouldn’t because it’s rude. Columbo says it’s all right, as long as I send him prints.
I’m with my siblings at a strange woman’s house. She’s maybe a friend of Gran’s, or a relative? I’m reading a shonen manga, a super long series that is never gonna end. We collect flowers from around the apartment for the woman’s dead husband, then we go down a narrow spiral staircase to leave the building. I’m not wearing any socks.
Walking home I come across an old schoolmate, M., who used to be a runner. I haven’t seen her in 15 years but she’s still running with a group of friends. I show her my fitness bracelet and say I’m also exercising, but we both know it’s a lie. We have stopped near a farm, there are cats and mice and a black and white horse behind a fence.
Three high school kids walk past us: they are the classic mean girls, very trendy and with heavy make up. They mock me as they walk by. I yell back that they are ugly, but realize it’s a lame retort: so I grab two of them, obviously the two sidekicks walking one step behind their queen bee, and force them to walk with me for a while instead. I improv a funny story about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
…and then God said, “What the f**k?!”
They are laughing at my story, and hopefully they will have a better opinion of me now. I let them go.
It’s Autumn, and I have my high school Nokia with me instead of a new smartphone. I try to take pictures and they are surprisingly good quality. Then I realize somebody is following me: it’s a kid, fourteen or so, thin with blond hair and glasses. He’s a stalker in love with me. I take pictures of him following me and yell that I’m gonna call the police. He doesn’t care, follows me all the way back home. I call for my dad to come beat him up.
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.
I’m in high school, we need computers but the only available ones are in a classrooms already being used. The teacher bring us there anyway, there are only four PCs and we all huddle around them. The kids already there are actually practicing ballet, how artistic of my school. They are all dressed in pink, boys too, working at their barres. They are quite talented and motivated, I want to take pictures of them but my phone has caught some sort of virus, there are ads all over the lock screen and it keeps ringing randomly.
Meanwhile my classmates are just playing around with the computers, and the teacher (my actual English teacher from back then, hey Mrs. L.!) is at her desk chatting with a colleague and smoking a cigarette.
A recurring dream: I’m at school, usually high school, and still have to graduate. It’s been years and I’m stuck here, failing my finals every time and having to go back. Often I’m sitting in my old philosophy teacher’s class, but in my dreams he teaches something even more horrid, like math or biology. I’m always unprepared, always didn’t study, always have skipped classes and don’t know how to catch up. Today’s dream is no different, I’m sitting at my desk but I don’t even know where on the textbook we’re at, I’m hoping and praying that the teacher won’t ask me questions. Suddenly a thought occurs to me: I’m starting my new job soon!* How can I go to school if I’m supposed to be at work every morning? Does this mean…? Dare I hope? I run to my mom and ask her if I’m allowed to quit school, at long last.
Another dream: I’m sitting in a little Victorian living room, I am Jo March from Little Women. I’m entertaining guests with my sisters, there’s two gentlemen for now but we’re waiting for a friend of Meg’s to come by, we’re told she’s a very sweet young lady. She arrives just as Beth is sitting at the piano singing an Ave Maria with her beautiful soprano voice. I think to myself it’s pretty cinematic and we’re gonna make a great impression. The guest enters the room and Amy –as played by a young Kirsten Dust– does a little double take and exclaims, “And who are you supposed to be?!” It’s very funny and endearing.
We all go out to the yard where the gentlemen strike a conversation with Netflix’s Lucifer. The two are gushing about something awful, like slave trade. Lucifer punishes us all by shrinking down the whole party to half our size. Baffled, Amy picks up a red leaf from the ground, it’s bigger than her hand now.
Meg and I leave to find a cure, accompanied by our butler, who’s a posh Brit with a white mustache. We are so small the three of us look like children walking down the street. We reach my IRL neighborhood and sneak in the local kindergarten, the rooms inside are covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling with blue porcelain tiles. We leave from the window, and there’s a cackle of hyenas waiting for us outside! We grab our batons and flame throwers and get ready for the fight.
*I am starting a new job on Thursday.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 