I dream that I’m playing Legos with some girl friends, we have a big, yellow tent and we’re supposed to play camping with, but nobody is really committing. I send everyone away because I just want to play on my own at this point, and now I’m the one on the mountains, sleeping in the yellow tent.
In the morning I see a woman cutting down grass from a meadow, she’s working hard and I want to help, but she says she’s good on her own. I insist, eventually she says I can go with her to the store. We climb down to the village, the woman apologizes because it’s summer and too hot, but I don’t feel hot at all.
I want to buy snacks, but the village store is so small there’s barely some chips. The shop keeper wants to sell us pizza, we don’t know how to tell her we already made our own from scratch.
I dream that I’m visiting C., or maybe she’s visiting me. She almost comes to the beach with me. My brother almost bakes his famous pizza for her family. The whole time I’m nervous and restless, thinking about the old film camera I recently acquired and how am I gonna possibly make it work
I dream that I’m working at the new store, the one above our regular store that I dreamed about last week. I’ve always wondered, when something seems familiar, is it because I’ve legit dreamed about if before or is it just my mind playing tricks? Well, now I know! This time I’m wearing a name tag on my chest that says “I’m new, please be gentle with me.” Indeed I’m so slow that my cousin kicks me out.
The next day I don’t want to go to work, I’m not even sure if they actually hired me back or if this is all just a dream. I go out with friends instead, we stop to buy pizza but the guy behind the counter seems very unhygienic, I slip away without my friends noticing. I’m hungry now and it’s night already, I stop at a restaurant that is just a series of tables under the stars. I’m very suspicious about hygienic standards, I order a simple cheese pizza (the least dangerous, I assume), it takes them ages to bring it to the table.
The next morning I’m walking home after skipping work once again, I hear someone calling me, I look up and see my neighbor C. waving at me from the attic window. I go up to her and she’s sitting at a table eating, she starts telling me all about some gossip she heard (typical!) when a goose flies in from the window, a big brown goose, rather angry. It starts honking at C.’s ear, doesn’t calm down until it’s offered some food.
I close all the doors and windows in case the goose wants to come back, then go down the stairs. I’m in a beautiful old mansion that belongs to my grandfather. It used to be in ruins when I was a kid, now my uncle has renovated and it’s so beautiful it looks more like a museum. I know once grandgfather dies my uncle will kick us out and I wish I could show all of this to my penpal in time, but she’s visited me just a few days ago (I DO dream about old dreams!) and it’s gonna be a while before she comes back. Maybe I’ll give her a virtual tour, once new technologies allow it.
I look at the portraits on the walls and imagine what I would say to 18th century people to explain TV screens.
It’s like a big mirror, but instead of yourself you see other people and stories. It’s connected by a series of wires that transfer electricity, it’s the stuff lighting bolts are made of.
My uncle arrives and catches me looking at his art collection. Just like grandfather, this guy isn’t one of my IRL uncles, he’s a short, balding man with glasses, and expensive suit and a nervous expression. He noticesI’m crying because I’m so moved by all these beautiful neoclassical statues, he says he cries all the time too, maybe he can get along with my siblings and I after all.
We organize a sack race so we can bond, I’m a teen girl, I have a teen brother and a toddler sister, suspiciously similar to A Series of Unfortunate Events characters. The toddler wins the race.
I read that I’m reading a book by Taylor Swift, I don’t like it too much so I’m planning to donate it to the local library. My brother is convinced this is his fault somehow, I tell him no, never, I might have a strained relationship with my sister but I love him no matter what.
It’s the twins’ birthday today, my mother is convinced they’re turning 13, it’s more like, 31. We have pizza, laugh, watch a movie about a pale girl possessed by a spirit. She lifts her mask and underneath she has three eyes, each a different color. My sister and I exchange an excited glance,
If she’s possessed, this means Beyoncé will actually voice Beyoncé!
we say together. Then the twins steal one of my old diaries, tease me about my high school crush.
The three of us go out for a stroll together, when we get to town I realize we all forgot to wear our masks. I fish in my bag for my spare one, my brother say no worries, he’s got them, and gives each of us a menstrual pad. That can’t be right, I think, but I glance around and everyone is putting menstrual pads on their faces, wings and all.
I dream that a new stationary store opened in the bad part of town, and I decide to walk there. I go halfway before realizing I forgot to wear my mask, I run back home and by then it’s five in the evening and it’s getting dark. Streets are dangerous in the dark, maybe my mom wants to come along?
What about dinner, I ask. We can order pizza, she says.
I dream that a tiger cub wanders into my living room. It’s night and I’m the only one still up. He’s afraid at first, but soon he’s in my lap purring. He’s even getting along with my cat.
The next day we try to find out where the cub came from. We call the vet clinic and they say he ran away after one of the doctors, a guy named Maycon, committed suicide. Incredibly, we are allowed to keep the cub until they find a proper home for him.
We bring both pets, cat and tiger, on a trip with us. We visit a futuristic facility where they are creating VR videogames.
I’m told to sit at a machine in the middle of a giant room, there’s a gaming chair elevated from the ground and surrounded by screens. Below there’s a desk with multiple computers, the woman sitting behind the desk is the director of the project. My family is looking up with interest. The tiger cub and my cat are wandering around the room.
My body is scanned so my avatar will look realistic. I find myself sitting inside a futuristic car, a race is about to start but I can’t drive! “What do I do?” I yell, panicking. “Floor the pedal!” I hear my dad yelling back. The program changes to a horse race and I don’t fare any better.
The director is disgusted at my incompetence. When it’s my brother’s turn she asks him what kind of games he likes. I wish she had asked me as well. As my brother plays (as Ranma ½ , and dismayed about turning into a girl) the director looks me over and says, “some people just lack intelligence”.
I grab her by the lab coat and hiss,
Not everyone is the same. I may not be good at videogames, but I have emotional intelligence.
When it’s time to go home we board a super fast train, it’s bright red and looks so modern. Again, my cat and the tiger cub are wandering up and down the train corridors.
We don’t have tickets, the other passengers are carrying their tickets on their wrists, like some sort of smart watch. The conductor comes over to scan the watches, my dad tells her we need to buy ours. She says, you can do that, or you can try your luck at our slot machine.
All the passengers without a ticket get in line, one by one they pull the lever of the slot machine, but nobody wins. When it’s my turn I pull the lever and the machine blinks and whistles! I’m excited for a moment thinking I won a ticket. The conductor is impressed too, because apparently nobody had won anything in years.
The machine spits out a receipt. I read it, it’s a coupon for a pizza place from the town we’ve just left. It says I’ve won a lemongrass pizza. I don’t even know what that is, I’ll just have to give the coupon to someone else because it’s useless to me.
I dream that I need to go to a doctor appointment (I did, this morning) but have to go to school first. There’s the town market on the way, I’m wearing flip flops and lose one, I have to go back looking for it in the crowd.
At this point it’s too late to make it to school, I get distracted on the way by a box full of stickers and washi tape outside a store. I sit on the ground rummaging through it. Various kids join me and also Dark’s Katharina Nielsen, who’s very interested in the cardboard box itself. I go inside to pay for my stickers, it’s a comic book store and the owner is rather nice, I tell him I’ll send over my brother to get some comics. I buy so much stuff, including a pizza. He says everything will cost me 5 bucks. I insist on paying at least 15.
Now I’m late for the doctor too. The only logic solution is to go back in time and start the morning again. I meet Eve and Villanelle from Killig Eve on the way. My doctor was fired (was it my fault??), the blonde substitute says I have cancer.
I dream that my whole family is going to the mall, I’m feeling angry and uncomfortable and demand to get out of the car. I wonder around town as I wait for them to come back with pizza.
They bring home a strange green pizza, they say the secret ingredient is herbs. They try to coax me into eating it, but I’m just a child, everyone around the table is looking at me, I’m so hungry but I can’t eat. I run to hide in the balcony to cry and cry.
I dream that my Gran lives in a pretty little town. I go visit her. There is an IKEA nearby and a bus that can take us directly there so we plan our trip, but as we go I realize I forgot my purse and face mask, I have to run back to the house.
I collect my things and go back again. The town is beautiful, there are churches and a big white monument, I wish I could take pictures but the phone in my pocket is my old 2000s Nokia. I find Gran sitting at the bus stop chatting with some ladies. They send me to a nearby pizza takeout to buy our bus tickets, the owners speak German for some reason (maybe I am in Germany??) but they understand my English. They want to be paid in Marks, I’m confused because I only have Euros with me.
(I should add that while all this happened I was somewhat aware I was dreaming, I kept waking up and stubbornly going back to sleep because I really wanted to go to IKEA. I couldn’t tell you if it was a dream in a dream situation or I was legit waking up for a second or two.)
We finally reach IKEA and it’s nothing like the real thing, more like a bazar. There’s only one type of item I’m looking forward to: stationary! I spend ten minutes agonizing over washi tapes, much to the other costumers’ annoyance. I finally select one with fish illustrations. I’m moving on to stickers, when a woman stops me and ask for help picking a fountain pen. I’m wearing a red polo shirt and she must have mistaken me for an employee, she’s so disappointed when I tell her I’m not she violently wakes me up.
I hear my siblings whispering, I know they’re plotting something. They bully and gaslight me and my father joins in, so I have no choice but run away from home. I can never come back.
It’s soon lunch time and I’m hungry, I find and open diner and order pizza, I’m asked to sit in a corner because of social distancing measures. The owner rolls her eyes at my pizza and says next time I should order a proper meal; I feel humiliated.
I call my therapist because I badly need some help, the voicemail says I’ll find her at the local park after 6 P.M., sitting in a plexiglass box for, you guessed it, social distancing. But at this point I can’t even remember what I was mad about, and I go back home.
My sister and cousin are forcing me to compete in a quiz show, filming takes place in a basement several floors below a local supermarket. We are brought to a room where a bunch of girls are getting ready, putting their makeup on etc. My sister teases me for never wearing makeup, she says I’m insecure and a coward.
I decide I’m not gonna compete after all, I walk in the middle of the room and announce to everyone that I’m quitting. The producers are saying I simply can’t, I should actually be the first to go on stage, but I take the escalator and leave.
One of the producers is following me up to the ground floor, she is a pretty woman with a black bob, green clothes and triangular eyelashes. She is telling me that I could win a lot of money, don’t I want money to buy… (she looks around in the dark of the abandoned supermarket floor) a Venetian mask? I say I’m not interested.
As I walk home I’m joined by my cousin, who was kicked out of the quiz show in record time. The woman in green is still following us, she says it’s because her car is parked nearby, but she looks sad and worried and I feel guilty because maybe she’s gonna lose her job because of me. I take her by the hand (so soft!) and ask her if she would like to stop somewhere for tea. She looks me in the eyes and smile. She really is beautiful.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 