I dream that I’m in my bed, thinking about skipping school today, that’s gonna be fine. Then I remember that I’m an adult with a job. I slowly get up and I still don’t want to go. It’s raining outside.
My aunt, the racist lawyer, and her sister show up. I don’t want to see them, I try to jump off the balcony but that doesn’t work. I hide under my mother’s bed instead. My aunt bends down and finds me. I stab her, and stab and stab and stab. She is still alive, still smiling at me.
I dream that my old friend S. sends me a video message, it’s got a weird filter that makes her look like a cartoon dog riding a bike and pulling a cart full of puppies. Very fitting, I think, seeing how many children she has in real life. In the message she asks for my school notes. I have to tell her I decided to quit school and that I have a job now! (HOW MANY FRIGGIN TIMES do I have to feel guilty in my dreams about quitting high school? Seeing as I NEVER QUIT HIGH SCHOOL IRL!)
Then I dream about Kevin McCallister running from the police on a flying hoverboard.
I dream that I’m playing the Sims. I rotate through different families, there’s a couple trying to solve a murder and there’s one that is moving back to their parents’ haunted house.
I dream that the store I work at is now a hospital. Today new recruits, junior doctors and nurses, are arriving, I meet one of them and offer to show her around. She’s a young woman with her son, I show the boy the giant slides on the roof of the hospital, doesn’t he want to play? He says he’d rather stick with his mom.
The hospital is once again a giant maze. After running in circles for a bit I decide to use a secret ladder. It’s a trick I always use in my dreams, I explain to the woman and the boy, maybe it’ll work now even though this totally isn’t a dream, absolutely not, we’re all wide awake.
Finally we reach a classroom, we’re super late so I end up sitting in a student’s desk instead of the teacher’s desk with the other senior employees. My cousin wants to know why I haven’t sent my notes to the other students yet. I rush home and start googling them because of course I misplaced mine. They all seem to be about philosophy and religion. My coworker S. calls me frantically because I’m still not back to the store and he needs help. Meanwhile all the other students are trying to solve a murder.
I dream that I’m at work and I’m told I’ll have to take a quiz on Monday to proven how much I’ve learned and my worth as an employee. I legit think, “This is gonna give me nightmares”.
I go back home in a bad mood. It’s raining, as usual, and yet there’s a farmer market along the street. I can’t find my building’s entrance (“Just like in my nightmares”, I think), I can’t see her but my mother is mocking me from the balcony, calling me stupid.
I dream that it’s raining and I’m late for school, again. As I rush out I see a delivery guy throwing a package against my door. I ask, what the hell?! He says
Miss, it’s raining and I’m tired.
Instead of going to school I find myself at the mall. It’s okay, I think, no one will ever know. Maybe I could even go to the black mall that only seems to exist in my dreams. I’d catch a bus ride if only I could remember the name.
Eden, maybe?
A man is following me, some kind of pervert. I call security on him. Great, now I’ll have to testify at his trial and my parent will know I skipped school.
What if they fail me this year? My sister is back home again and now we’ll have to compete for jobs as well. I decide I should look into hologram technology, if they’re realistic enough my sister will go back to her place and still feel like she’s having dinner with us every night.
I dream that I’m having a fight with my sister because, as usual, I don’t want to share a room. I grab her sheets and throw them out.
Then I dream that I’m late for work. Then, that I’m singing to some cowboys. Then I’m in a Dragon Ball episode. Then, it’s November and there are no Christmas ads on TV because of Corona. It’s rather sad.
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.
I dream about prepping for my day at school, putting all my books and notebooks in my bag, determined to find out my class schedule this time— (Why do I keep dreaming about this?! As far as I can remember I had no problem keeping track of my schedule back then.)
(At this point I’m woken by my new South American neighbor, who is AS USUAL barking at her phone on the balcony next to my bedroom window. It’s 7:20 of a Sunday morning.)
I fall asleep again and I dream that I go knocking on the woman’s door. I’m welcomed in by the two sisters who used to live here twenty years ago: they are adults now and we chat amicably, catching up on our lives.
I finally reach the garden (how is there a garden inside an apartment?) where my new neighbor is standing. In my broken Spanish, I try to beg her to please, please stop screaming at her phone. She takes my hand and tells me her name is Marisol and she misses her family very much. Then we have to run away because the garden fills with smoke as the building catches fire. A group of firefighters that are actually child acrobats rush in after us.
By now I’m trying to wake myself up because I’m aware I’ve overslept. I have no luck as I keep finding myself inside another nested dream. Since nothing is real anyway, I decide to go outside and make people strip naked.
I dream about going to see a doctor. I go inside his office and there before me, wearing a white coat, is my coworker, S. I’m really surprised, how can he possibly have time to practice? He’s at the store every day! Says he,
I use my lunch break.
He’s somewhat dismissive of my symptoms and it gets me somewhat mad.
I go home and find out a neighbor wants to sue my family for very petty reasons. I invite her over so she can see we’re not so bad after all. She’s in her forties and too uptight to be beautiful, but I still think she’s hot.
The next morning I need to get to school and I’m late, but I’m also suspecting I’m dreaming, that must mean I’m actually early, right? I walk in town with no rush and I waste some time riding a roller coaster at a local festival. Yes, it must be a dream because I’m not even scared.
I walk for a bit in the snow, and it’s really time to wake up and go to school for real, I think. I slap my face, hoping it will do the trick. Then I throw myself down a cliff. Nothing. I yell for my dad, hoping he can help me. I hear a loud whistle in the gray, snowy sky. That sounds more real than the rest of my current reality, so I follow it.
I wake up as a little white and brown dog. I go explore the city again.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 