A castle on a hill?
People are school are Benjamin Buttoning, turning younger and younger until there’s nothing left of them. My gang and I investigate: it was the Mayor.
I’m sitting in the back seat of a car with Gran. Her boyfriend is driving, my dad is sitting next to him. Suddenly he turns around to talk to me and dad has to grab to wheel, we nearly crash against a red van. I am so scared and so mad that I get out of the car and refuse to talk to Gran’s boyfriend for the rest of my life.
I’m at school; there is a “problematic” boy and a teacher provokes him into being violent, all so he can expel him. I’m outraged, I know he has a difficult home situation and doesn’t deserve this. I also think I’m in love with him. He’s blonde and not exactly handsome. I tell my teachers that I lost all respect for them.
I walk away with the boy. He has a job at a liquor store just right beside the store I work in, it must have been destiny. I tell him I haven’t worked in months though, because of the lockdown*. I go home and I’m bare footed, I keep walking on dog poop and it’s awful. I come across a group of volunteers cleaning the streets and picking up all the poop and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Back at school the teachers are organizing a D&D game that is also a play. I’m on the losers’ side, and when the play starts our costumes are cheap and ugly while our rivals looks magnificent. We are still going to beat them though.
*Alas, true. But also, how am I allowed to go to school in the dream and not to work??
For a classic recurring dream of mine, it’s the last day of high school and I’m older than my classmates because I failed the year a few times. I’m an awkward loser, but the other kids have grown fond of me because they’re convinced I’m a boy…?
On my way home −not wearing a mask and feeling guilty about it− I meet my late Grandpa P., he’s very sweet and caring, unlike in real life, as he earnestly asks me about my job prospects. Under my arm I carry a goodbye present my classmates have left me with, a wooden box full of tweezers, razors, nail clippers and other grooming tools. I find it all so very useful and I want to thank them, but the generic messaging app on my phone doesn’t seem to work.
It’s raining as I walk home from high school. I’m wearing bell bottom jeans and (just like during my actual high school days!) the hems got all wet and muddy. Chatting along with me there’s my old classmate M., a bony girl with freckles and bovine eyes; she can’t believe we are already seniors and our school days are almost over, do I know what I’m gonna do next? Yes, I’m gonna apply to [IRL store I work at] and, I brag, I’ll have to work until 7:30 P.M. She says she’s gonna get off even later and I’m jealous, she’s always been smarter than me!
After lunch I get restless, I’m already late for my old philosophy teacher’s class, why do I always miss it? What if he never lets me graduate?! I go to pee on the balcony (it’s raining and everything is already wet so, I figure, why not?) and run off, but halfway to the school I once again remember that I’m an adult with a job and I don’t have to worry about graduating anymore.
I decide to go shopping with Gran instead. As usual, there’s too many people inside the supermarket and nobody is wearing a mask, I’m really concerned about Gran’s safety, so I drag her outside as it starts drizzling again. She’s carrying a plastic bag with a pink pullover inside, there is no place to store it though, so she hangs it from a branch that’s leafless and skeletal against the gray sky. I’m afraid somebody is gonna steal the bag and when she’s not looking I take it and bring it home, for safekeeping.
There is a man chasing us, he’s wearing an animal skull on his head. He’s immortal, no matter how much we hurt him he keeps getting up; eventually I throw a bomb and blow him to smithereens. I know this is gonna buy me some time so I go to class; I can’t pay attention though, ever few moments I glance at the door, wondering when the man with the animal skull will be back.
I’m taking a walk in town with Gran, we’re not wearing a face mask and I feel guilty about it. She buys a notebook and I pay for it, then she gets a coffee to go (more sanitary!) and I pay for that too, so now I don’t have any money left.
I go back home and use the notebook to copy down a Sudoku board, I make a big mess of inky splotches and have to rip out the page. An old schoolmate comes over, he shows me a book he’s writing: the plot is about a rich young boy (self insert much? I think) with a kidnapped little sister. The book *I* am writing is much better, it’s about a genius little girl living in Victorian times.
He notices a picture of Narcissa Malfoy on the cover of one of my books, says she’s the most beautiful woman in all Harry Potter canon. I argue that would be Rowena Ravenclaw’s daughter, I try to google her but there’s something wrong: I’m writing her name on my notebook instead of a computer, and each two words I write, a drawing that combines both of them appears on paper. I immediately start combining pornographic words, and I’m still having fun with the results when my alarm rings, dangit.
I want to shave my head! All the salons are closed and my hair is getting so long it’s driving me insane (this is also true IRL). My dad and I drive to a beach house where Cousin G. is sitting on the patio, doing guess what? Yes, she has a buzzer and it’s giving herself a nice clean shaved cut.
I ask her to do mine too, dad immediately forbids it. She tries to trim my hair a bit instead, I look in the mirror and… she gave me a Mike from Stranger Things haircut! Angry, I grab the razor and shave off a big chunk of hair, now she won’t have any choice but finish the job.
My newly shaved head looks bulgy and knobby and the skin has a grayish zombie hue to it. I look like a cartoon villain! It’s absolutely horrifying, dad says it’s disgusting. Now I’ll have to wear a hat everywhere I go.
I’m dating A., my old best friend from elementary and middle school: I didn’t know she was into girls but she has revealed she’s −in fact− bisexual. I want to spend all my time with her and I’m dreading going back to work once the quarantine is over, because we won’t be able to see each other anymore.
We come back from school hand in hand, I’m wearing an awkward early 2000s polo shirt, the striped, tight-fitting kind. We get to my house and my Gran starts fussing over us; A. sighs and rolls her eyes, she says ,
At the start of every relationship there’s always a grandma butting in.
We are tidying up my room, Gran finds my report card hidden in a drawer and looks very disappointed. I tell her I don’t want to go to school anymore, I have a job, why can’t I just skip my finals and start earning money?!
Ashamed, I go to hide in the kitchen. Mom is there and she’s looking at my legs. Have I been exercising? She asks. I’ve been running a lot, I explain, alone in my bedroom since we can’t go out (also true IRL). I look down at my calves, they are incredible! Muscular and round and toned. They look completely ridiculous in the context of my wimpy, chubby body, I’ll have to diversify my fitness regime.
Didn’t have time to write down my dream this morning, being Easter and all, but I seem to recall.., something about going to school but realizing I forgot the notebook with my homework at home? And I have to go back for it. It was a military green notebook and it was meant for my philosophy teacher.
I’m grocery shopping with my cousin, we find an aisle in the supermarket stocked with every kind of face masks: they are expensive, truly outrageously expensive, common surgical masks cost 20 bucks apiece and there’s one single N95 mask, orange, that costs more than 600 bucks. Still, we’ve been looking everywhere and we really need those masks, I want to call my dad and ask what to do but once again I only have an old phone on me. I look for “home” on the contacts list and a stranger answers: he’s using my childhood landline number, I feel weirdly angry and protective.
We go to my cousin’s place and have fried fish and chicken for lunch. Then I go to school and my old philosophy teacher is there, but this time he’s teaching math, even better. He’s graded yesterday’s tests, on mine I only wrote down half of the answers and that half I copied. He’s really angry with me, he asks why, oh why am I so bad at math? I explain it’s because I’m smart, I’m so smart that in primary school I never learned how to study, everything was so easy. And now that math is difficult I cannot study to save my life. He says he doesn’t believe me.
I go back home and around the dinner table I explain the situation. I say I cannot even be bothered to learn my classes’ schedule. My mother is very worried, she says I’ll need to do something if I want to pass my finals. I say that hopefully this pandemic will be over soon, I’ll be back to work and won’t have to go to school ever again. Who cares about my finals anyway? Everyone is shocked and angry at me.*
My sister who’s also at the table sends me to fetch her boyfriend’s dog. I walk to town and start looking at every person walking with a dog, hoping to recognize her. I eventually find her, she doesn’t look at all like his real life dog but she’s limping just like her. She’s pooped all over herself and has to be rushed home to get washed, as we wait my sister and I walk into a stationary store. I hope to find stickers but only find pretty notebooks.
*I want to point out once again that I’m an adult, I’ve been out of school for 15 years and I definitely passed my finals back then. WHY DO I KEEP DREAMING ABOUT THIS.
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.
(Very light sleep, kept waking up and panicking about the pandemic. Now trying to make sense of confusing images.)
I’m going on a trip despite everything. A school trip, maybe? At night we are shown an old Disney movie with Hailey Mills, one I’ve never seen before. We’re travelling on a small dog sled. Someone in the group cheats on his wife (Travis, was that you? I HOPE NOT!). I go back home and stay awake all night writing about it.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 