I dream that I’m a scientist at the end of a long, long stay on the moon. I didn’t have an easy relationship with my colleague, also a brilliant scientist. But now, at then end, we sit under a blanket together and cuddle, watching the black sky from a big window. She’s beautiful. Our orange cat is bouncing around the station wearing a little space suit.
Then I dream that I’m teaching how to read to a little Middle Eastern boy, descendant of knights and dragons. It’s Christmas day and I’m trying to keep my tears at bay because I know there won’t be any presents for me under the tree, my family will have forgotten as usual. They are all sitting around the dinner table, arguing about politics.
Guess what, I dream that I’m at school, but I can’t go to my classroom because there are some students sleeping there. It’s part of their religion, I think. AOC is one of them. As I’m waiting in the street for them to wake up, my neighbor’s mom ask where I hid the presents she bought for her son. Because it’s Christmas, and he’s a child again.
Oh no, I hid the presents in the classroom. The boy sneaks inside to go look for them. I follow, angry at how disrespectful he’s being.
My classmates are waking up and emerging from their sleeping bags. They’ve found the presents I hid, an illustrated book and some Harry Potter stickers. They are teasing each other, asking who the kid’s stuff belongs to. They’re mine! Says the actual kid.
Oh, they say, realizing their mistake. Have you been a good boy?
Yes, he replies. They give him his presents.
I go home and cry because I never get any presents from my parents.
We find a bunch of children’s toys hidden in a closet in hour home, they are all still packaged and rather old, hidden there since the 70s. They are all strange and ugly, there is a naked Barbie with a giant stomach: when you open it, a little blonde doll with pigtails pops out.
A neighbor gave the toys to my mom to hide until Christmas, but she died shortly after and the toys were long forgotten. We decide now we’re gonna wrap them up for that neighbor’s children.
One of her children sits next to me at school, it’s the pudgy blond boy. I show him the presents and say they are for him and his siblings. What would he like, I ask, maybe colored pencils would be useful?
He asks what I’m gonna give to his older, already adult brother, I say I’ll give the toys to his toddler son instead. He thinks for a moment and say,
The toddler is also my mother’s child, but we will never tell him.
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.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 