I dream that I’m walking downtown holding hands with a girl, she’s tall and her hair is dark. I’m trying to flirt. She says if we ever dated she’d be worried about my mental health. Still she peppers my face and shoulders with little kisses, end eventually gives me a long kiss on the lips.
Then I dream it’s town festival night, I notice in the crowd a group of men wearing Nazi uniforms. Assholes! I yell in their general direction and keep walking confidently, thinking they won’t be able to locate me in the crowd. They find me though, they start following me and taunting me. One squeezes my arm and says I have no muscle. One throws me to the ground. The police arrives and they all run away because they’re cowards.
I dream that it’s the first day of school, I’m already bored and I’m planning to go home at lunch time and skip afternoon classes; I’m going down the stairs with my jacket on and holding my umbrella, when I remember that next class is called “History of Visual Arts” and the teacher is very cute, so I casually go back inside and slid in my seat as if nothing happened.
We’re given a few tablets and gather together to watch a movie scene; there’s an actor and two actresses (Uma Thurman and Sandra Bullock, I think) engaged in a fight scene; suddenly overwhelmed with passion, the actor kisses one woman, then the other. I hope next the two women will kiss each other, and they do! And it’s long and deep, “That’s so hot,” I can’t help but whisper. The guy sitting next to me takes it as an invitation to flirt with me, he puts his hand on my hip and starts breathing down my neck. I push him away, go sit alone at another desk and keep watching the movie on my phone. The guy says I’m overreacting, one of the girls in front of the class says she saw everything and he was acting inappropriately.
“Why where you watching them and not the movie?” the teacher wants to know.
Once again I dream about having a girl over, she has black hair and is round and soft. We change in our pajamas and all I want is to caress and kiss her skin, touch her breasts under the fabric, but she’s too restless to sit down and give me what I want.
My mother is in the living room and she teases me about hearing my bed creaking. I tell her nothing happened, which is the truth, and shes a annoyed because I’m too “unflappable”.
I go back to my room and the girl is gone, and I can’t remember her face anymore.
There is a toddler −maybe my little sister?− that keeps jumping in my arms from great heights, first from a tree, then from the stairs of a big marble statue. It’s so dangerous and I’m afraid I’m not gonna catch her next time.
My cousin and I are going to see a StarKid show in town, and it’s already my second time because I love it so much, even though I feel incredibly guilty about the crowd gathering in the theater. Not many people are paying attention though, I’m literally the only one cheering and clapping at the stage. A girl is listening to music too loudly and I can’t remember how to say to lower the volume in Japanese; eventually my cousin drags her away and I go sit in the first row. At the end of the show Lauren Lopez comes down the stage and kisses me on the cheek, “Thank you, Lauren” I say, breathless.
I tell my cousin I don’t need a ride home and I’ll just walk, but of course I get lost. I meet an old schoolmate, S., and ask her the way. She points to a tiny alley going down two rows of old stone houses, and I immediately know there are gonna be dogs behind the gates: since I’m terrified of dogs barking at me up close, I go looking for another way. I end up looking at a river banks, the stone buildings and the people playing on the sand are bathed in afternoon sunlight. Again, I feel bad about the crowd, but it’s all so beautiful I decide to take a picture and brag about it on social media.
I look in my pocket and I find a slim white watch. It’s not mine. In the other pocket there is a phone, old and broken and again, not mine. I run back hoping I just forgot my actual phone at the theater, but I’m panicking so badly that I wake up.
Dad and I are watching a movie. It’s very experimental, during the opening credits we see the landscape running away as if it was filmed from a car, from a window here and a tree there certain images or words pop up, conveying a dreamy, hopeful mood. Dad is impressed and asks me if I ever saw anything like it. I say no.
The movie begins properly and we are both taken aback to discover it’s not recent, but a vintage one with Sophia Loren speaking a passable English. The scene is set on my house’s balcony and neither of us question that.
My penpal C. has come to visit, but every time I turn my back or move to another room I forget what she looks like, I keep needing to go check again. Eventually I learn that she has short blonde hair and a bit of a plain face (nothing like IRL C.): she looks like a less attractive Saoirse Ronan, but I’m not that pretty either so I think we’re reasonably well-matched. I want to impress her, so I tell her my family has an acting tradition; why, even Sophia Loren filmed in this house! C. likes acting, I reason, hopefully she’ll want to marry me and take my genes, even though we’re both girls and that’s not how it works.
I’m late for school! As I look for my coat she protests out loud. I need to go to these classes, I explain, or I’ll have to repeat the year come September. Her mom is now in the room with us, sitting in an armchair and talking about boys, oblivious to what’s happening. C. gets really, really close and pins me to a wall, I feel her warm breath as she asks me,
“Remember what we did to that donut last year?”
I whisper yes, she asks if I’d like to do that again. “Yes,” I say trembling,”if you want to.” She’s about to kiss me, when I wake up.
I fall asleep again and dream the same dream. Now I’m running to get to school in time, I have to attend at least 70% of my classes and I’m not about to skip them this afternoon. When I arrive though, I realize with horror I’m not in my usual class with the boring philosophy professor, I went to work instead! Except work is a greenhouse miles from where I’m supposed to be, and what’s worse, I’m not wearing any shoes.
Two friends come to the rescue, they are two young men. I get in their car and one of them borrows me his shoes, because we are the same size, don’t I know? I congratulate myself, I’m so smart for remembering such a crucial detail, my narrative skills are on point even when I’m dreaming. We are showed a flashback where the friend buys me a pair of cool shoes, yellow and blue.
The car crosses a bridge, I notice racists graffiti on the walls. I look at the time, it’s almost six and I only have one hour left to not completely waste my evening. Unless… unless I was actually in a coma, in a tank full of red water and electric eels, and I never left the house. I missed school, I’ll never graduate now.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 