I dream that Harry Potter doesn’t want to be Harry anymore, much to his teachers’ dismay he gets rid of the scar and the glasses and goes on to live as a tall, slender Frodo Baggins wearing capri pants.
Then I dream that I’m eating lunch at the beach, I’m wearing jeans over my one-piece swimsuit because I’m not comfortable showing my legs. I go to the bathroom and try to pee, but realize I’m on my period and I’ll have to take off the swimsuit. Now I’m sitting on the toilet wearing a hoodie, then someone walks in the bathroom; I recognize him immediately, he’s Oprah’s son. He just won’t leave, he’s looking at me and I know I’ll have to sue him and his mother.
I dream that I’m at school, it’s a three hour class and everybody else is tired and bored, but I’m very excited because the teacher started writing in Japanese on the blackboard and I want to show off the little Japanese I know. Finally it’s time for a break, but before recess all the girls have to go through an ob-gyn visit. When it’s my turn I tell the doctor I have my period, he says “You’re excused [dramatic pause] this time.”
I go to my cousin’s house, bringing a stray mama cat with two kittens I found. Brie Larson is there because she goes to my school, I think this is an important fact that I’ll need to write on this very dream blog, even though people could just google where Brie Larson goes to school and find out where I’m from. Later I go back to collect the kittens, I kinda don’t want to separate them from their mama but she died in the meantime, so everything turned out okay.
I go to the supermarket with my cousin. I’m wearing only flip flops on socks and it starts raining outside, so I sit in a corner and start putting on my shoes. Some old ladies start teasing my cousin because her mom died. I tell them to fuck off. My cousin thanks me.
I dream about some sort of bomb that makes everyone have their period, men included. Meanwhile I’m eating a whole cow. It should be terrifying but it’s just quirky.
I dream that I’m staying at a hotel. It’s pretty quiet until a mom with a bunch of kids arrives (or maybe she’s a teacher?). Nobody in their group is wearing a mask and I’m pissed about it. One of the kids, about eleven years old, brown hair, gawky, eats one of my stickers. I forgive him.
Next morning I’m roped into shooting a documentary. The film crew drives me to a town sitting on a hill, they go on about how it’s much smarter than building on a taller mountain. I’m pissed about that too. I stop at a local store to buy some snacks, everything is outrageously expensive. I’m told we are going to shoot on a beach next, I’m upset because I just want to go home. Plus I got my period, along with the snacks I have to buy pads. I go looking for a bathroom and can’t find one. The crew is growing impatient.
I dream that I’m running late for school, I get quickly dressed in an oversize pink t-shirt and jeans. My mom is waiting for me in the car, she’s driving. Wait, I say, I think I got my period. I rush back inside and to the bathroom. My jeans are a mess. As I’m stripping down my cat jumps on the toilet and starts peeing, a focused, almost painful expression on her face. It’s too late to get to school by now. My parents ask me why I didn’t go, I change the subject and tell them everything about the cat instead.
Now I’m in bed with Corona. I feel fine, I don’t have any symptoms, but my test came back positive and and now I have an app that counts down the days until I die. I’m terrified, I don’t want to die, but all I can do is lie in bed and wait. Six days pass, nothing happens. Maybe there was a mistake? Hopeful, I venture out of bed. My legs feel weak, out of practice. I peek into the living room, ask my family if I could maybe go back to the hospital and be tested again? They tell me to go back to bed and wait to die in silence.
My underwear is soaked in blood. I don’t want anyone to know, so I wash it in the sink. I don’t know how to dry it, I need to hide it.
In the living room my parents and siblings are gathered together, laughing. It’s raining outside. I need to go to school, but my mom asks me to go grocery shopping; sure, I’ll just skip school today, I don’t care.
Dad is upset hearing this. I tell him I don’t want to go to school anymore, I want to get a job, but he’s worried we’ll be in debt. No we won’t, I tell him, remember last year when I was doing both high school and college? Rules are stupid.
Mom is of course taking his side. I’m so angry at her, I grab and shake her. Why don’t you ever listen to me?! I say. She smiles a wry smile and doesn’t look at me. She’s small now, the size of a cat, and I lift her up and keep shaking. Why don’t you love me?! I yell. Why don’t you care about me?!
There’s been a murder inside a big, white cathedral, two people, quite gruesome by the look of it. I’m with a couple of friends, one of them is my old classmate L. We are not allowed to go inside, but we leave a sad note with a fountain pen and our best wavy handwriting.
It’s a foggy, dark day. I meet both my grandmothers: they are sitting together on a bench outside a house. Grandma G. gives me a ring, it’s silver and heavy, I snatch it out of her hand right away with no shame. I tell them both to be careful and stay safe from the Coronavirus outbreak.
I’m at home, but home is a small RV. I’m waiting for my penpal C. to visit as she promised, because I want to propose to her. She arrives at night, wearing a white spring dress and pushing a shopping cart. She slips in my tiny bed.
It’s Easter, I’m celebrating with my siblings but I’m also missing work. I feel a bit guilty about it, and just then my boss shows up and looks at me and I can tell she’s silently judging me. I have my period and bad cramps, but I tell her I’m gonna wash my face, put my jeans on and go to work.
My cousin and I are on the run because we killed someone in Venice, and I can still feel the blood spraying from his throat. We desperately need to rest and get rid of evidence, so we choose a random, empty-looking house, we shower and change and are about to leave when a woman appears on the door. She’s around sixty, has short hair and glasses, looks like Phyllis Smith. We’re petrified for a moment, thinking we got caught, but luckily the woman is short sighted and mistakes us for her own nieces! She sees we showered and that we are carrying black garbage bags (to get rid of evidence!) and, bless her soul, just assumes we must have had our periods. She tells us to not worry because “it’s perfectly normal” and that we can use her house whenever we need. “See,” says my cousin as we leave. “Peace of cake.”
My siblings are now tagging along because they’re also murderers. We have found the perfect hiding spot: we’re sailing along the good guys’ ship, so massive they’ll never notice the small boat hiding literally under their noses. Or at least, we think we’re safe, but a government agent storms into the boat and easily defeats all of us! We think we are doomed, but to our surprise he offers us to become state-sanctioned assassins. We quickly take the offer.
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.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 