I dream that I’m walking with my brother, on my foot I’m wearing a single flip flop. We arrive in front of the local church. A group of teens are selling a tube of washi tape, I ask how much, they say 50 bucks. I grab a kid by the collar and threaten him, he say he’ll sell it for 30. It’s still too much, and I shove him away. I enjoy being bigger and scarier than him.
We walk in town, my brother stops at a cafe with pale blue interiors. I wait for him outside and observe my surroundings: there is a store selling Christmas trees and I think it’s ludicrous in June. A few feet away a man is inviting customers to “China Town”, I see a crowd of people laughing and yelling and eating duck. My Gran is among them. I cringe because none of us is wearing a mask, then I remember that I always wear masks in real life so this might be a dream. I can’t be sure though, it all looks so realistic.
I remember a collection of chocolate pralines, each with unique flavors like chewing gum, very American. They belong to my brother, but I’m also a little orphan and I’m trying to steal them with the other children at the orphanage, hoping the nuns won’t catch us.
Then I dream that we have guests over for dinner, the aunt and uncle I hate, and the next morning there is poop all over mine and my sister’s floors.
I’m at gran’s house, my siblings and my neighbor S. are with me. I’m playing the Sims and really getting into the game, but alas I need to turn off the computer and go home. We all climb into the car, I have some trouble closing the door.
We stop at an old beautiful building, something like a renaissance villa. There’s a comic book exhibit inside, we all take some time to visit it and at the end I ask my sister,
Does every artist really have to illustrate King James Bible at some point?
She says yes.
We arrive in town, outside the park there is a policewoman asking for everyone’s permission slips. She’s angry at us for being all out together, and she’s right, I think, that’s quite odd during a lockdown, what were we thinking? She finally allows us to go home, and as I start walking I notice that both my siblings and neighbor S. are turning into children, like we used to be when we played all together in this very park. My brother grins at me and jumps up and down. His hair is blond just like back then, and everything is beautiful.
It’s a Friday and it’s the second to last day of middle school. My cousin G. wants to end things in style by bombing the place, I’m helping her out even if I don’t approve: I’m actually gonna try to sabotage the bomb when she’s not looking. She’s so proud to have me on her team, hugs me and tells our classmates we’ve known each other “since we were babies”.
I see my chance when she mentions she can’t wait to go dance on Saturday night, I casually remind her we’re gonna bomb the school and we’ll all be dead by then. She looks taken aback, like she didn’t think things through. She starts quietly counting on her fingers, and I know I’m about to change her mind.
I go home and tell everyone I’m carrying a bomb, but not to worry, everything is under control. Meanwhile, can my parents help me bring all my stuff home from my classroom? I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be back, I’ve had to repeat this school year over and over and over and over again in my dreams, hell, even my little brother is starting middle school and is about to catch up with me.
The next day my cousin confesses the bomb was only a bunch of New Year fireworks, and if we launch them in the park it’s probably gonna be okay. I rush to do so, meanwhile she travels to a far away kingdom: the king’s brother is forced to wear a red woman’s dress to entertain the castle, she wants to rescue him because she’s in love with him. I think the whole thing is way too heteronormative, but the man is a blonde viking very upset with the whole situation, hopefully he’ll be grateful enough to marry her.
I am housekeeping for Gran and her boyfriend. When they come back they turn the place into a pizza restaurant.
I’m in a virtual world, I dig and dig into the sand until I find a layer of rocks and then a layer of metal. Even if the place isn’t real, I dig so much my hands are bleeding.
I’m in my childhood bedroom with my brother. There’s a closet full of toys we can buy, mostly Barbie’s accessories. We are not interested in any of them, so we pack up to go back home.
I’m with my cousin in the building’s parking lot, we are about to go inside the basement door when a black cat approaches us, he looks very chill and not afraid at all. My cousin asks if it’s my cat, I say it’s not, because my cat’s eyes are green and this one’s are yellow.
We go inside and the building has now turned into a tall maze with different stores and events on every floor. This is a recurring dream of mine, and I tell my cousin I can never find my way out when the it changes like this.
There is a giant pharmacy on the first floor, then a stock exchange. My dad makes his way through the various businessmen, he looks like Ricky Moranis did in the 90s. He stars yelling,
I want money! I want money! I WANT MONEY!
and he’s so convincing that one of the businessmen cedes him the right to some old songs. We go through them to figure out how much they’re worth. They come mostly from pulpy old movies, but there’s also a Christmas album from the cast of the cartoon “Sing”.
They are filming a Spiderman VS Thor movie in my neighborhood, but it’s very low budget. I’m watching Spiderman jump on top of my gate, and I can clearly see he used a trampoline badly hidden under a blanket.
I follow the actors as they run down the streets I’m so familiar with. We arrive at my late Grandma G.’s house: she and my dad are sunbathing in the yard. My brother approaches her and asks,
What is your true form?
She open her eyes and I shiver because I’m sure she’s about to unleash some ancient, unspeakable Eldritch horror on us. But my brother dips his hands in water and gently tickles and massages her bare feet. My grandma laughs and refuses to answer. Instead she tells us to keep our soulmates close.
My brother says he met his soulmate in a videogame. Grandma says out loud the name of mine, but I can’t remember it anymore.
My brother and I are watching a special DVD edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with two whole disks of extra content.
There is a deleted scene with Harry and Ron on a pirate ship. It’s a red and gold steamer with three black funnels, it’s smaller than a regular ship and it belongs to Captain Hook. Harry and Ron have been kidnapped along with other children, at twelve they are taller than the others so they try their best to look scared and innocent. I think it’s great to see them both so young again, it’s like going back in time.
More deleted scenes are shown, one is just a storyboard, one is really bad CGI, in one we see Harry from afar but it’s clearly a body double with glasses and gray hair. One scene is preserved only thanks to a couple of Indian voice actors in their booth, Hermione is too high-pitched but the boy playing Harry sounds remarkably like him. My sister catches us watching and says she’ll want to watch all the extras too when she comes back home.
I’m now at work, from my desk I can see inside my boss’ office because there is a closet missing, and apparently there never was a wall behind it. A customer is inside, I’m supposed to transfer her mobile data from her old umbrella to a new one. I ask my cousin for help and she tells me to use a standard cable.
Boss Lady walks out, demands to know why Saturday’s files weren’t archived. I promise her I archived everything I was given that evening and somebody must have hidden some files from me. Cousin G. gives me a new task, to wash our uniforms in a bin outside. I set to work in a sunny garden, and I wash with such gusto that I somehow end up drying the clothes as well. Boss Lady is even more impressed when I kill a mosquito that was walking on her neck.
I go back home and my sister is sitting on the living room floor. I’m really heartbroken because I was hoping she’d be gone forever.
I wake up and fall asleep again for a few minutes before my alarm rings. I dream about having to carry an old dying man to Hell. His wife is asleep in their room, unaware of what is happening. I take the man by the hand and we fly away, stars and building zooming behind us.
Once arrived to Hell, a demon cuts the old man’s penis off. He won’t need it anymore, the demon explains.
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.
I’m walking in the countryside with my dad, through stone roads and picturesque cottages. We can hear a bird trilling from a cage in someone’s yard, Dad remarks out loud about how annoying that is. The owner of the bird hears this and comes outside, angry at us: I wait for Dad to walk away, then take her hands in mine (they are small and stubby) and whisper an apology.
“I’m a good person, I’ve never beat anyone in my life!” the woman tells me, pouting.
“I wish I could say the same about my dad,” I reply, and walk away.
We leave the road and pass a wooden gate into a muddy path, and along the way I take cute pictures of pigeons. At the end of the path, in the middle of a clearing in the trees, there’s a small wooden house. A tiny old man greets us at the door, he looks vaguely familiar and Dad introduces him as a distant relative. He invites us inside.
The man’s wife shakes my hand: she is younger and portly, gives me an impression of energy and determination. I discover she is the leader of a political resistance and is trying to unionize a group of factory workers.
I’m now in the factory, I see the workers have received a secret message from their rebel leader. They gather in a room looking for something, they peep from a hole in the wall. Outside the room, their supervisor is growing suspicious: he’s a gaunt young man, he starts asking me too many questions. I’m standing next to a child, my little brother, and we both lie to him, tell him the secrete message was just someone calling a wrong number.
The workers emerge from the room, kidnap their supervisor and rape him with a rusty iron pole. I watch the whole thing, and while I believe the supervisor was enjoying himself, I still feel incredibly scared and guilty. I run back to the small wooden house and when my dad finds me, I lie and say I was there all day and never left.
I feel so guilty that, back home, I frantically try to erase my GPS history, I’m convinced I’m gonna be arrested. It’s hot outside, summer, my cousin G. wants to get me out of the house and have fun. She gives me an olive shirt and suggests I keep the buttons open with a small magnet, to show off my chest. Don’t I want to meet cute boys?! I say I don’t want to meet any boys and refuse to leave the house.
It’s New Year’s Eve. We all gather around the dinner table, a little bit dumbfounded. How can it be 2021 already, where did time go? I don’t have a journal for the new year, I don’t have any stickers, I don’t have a calendar. Then it downs on me: it’s still June, and we’ve been tricked. Is it the police? I check the online forums for traces I might have left behind. Then I wake up and I am very relieved to realize I’m not about to be arrested after all.
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 