I dream that I’m with friends at the mountain house, feeling guilty because we’re supposed to be in lockdown. We play in the grass and I take pictures of flowers, then we go to a birthday party downtown, in a huge building that looks like a museum. The police catches us at the door. Inside the museum there’s a CW Supergirl episode happening, everyone gets superpowers (didn’t they already have powers before…?).
My friends and I are now walking down the street wearing white, yellow and orange leotards. We arrive to school, but we’re new and there are too many stairs. My friends tentatively climb a spiral staircase in the middle of a round classroom. I consider my options and go for the stairs in the back.
I dream that I’m out and about with my Gran, I can’t remember doing what. She’s having trouble climbing stairs, it takes her a long while to reach the bakery we’re going to eat at. Finally, exhausted, she sits on a table outside the bakery and orders iced tea and a croissant.
I dream that I’m once again frustrated about all the supermarkets in my area being the same kind. I go inside one, eat a bun, feel guilty, confess and pay for it.
I go home and say hello to my sister that is coming down the stairs. Except that my sister is also inside, sitting on the couch. Who was that I saw on the stairs?
I go to the mall, there is a giant dead person set up like a statue, you can climb up some stairs to a pair of binoculars on the back of their head and see through their eyes.
Now my family is running down a set of stairs, my gran is on the lead; we’re escaping from a supervillain. We reach the basement and it’s not empty like we hoped, but elegantly furnished. Gran pushes open the door to a bedroom and an alarm blares.
The supervillain catches me. He’s a shape-shifting cyborg. A group of heroes flies in to fight him, they are about to finish him.
I wake up, thinking it’s very unfair I didn’t get to watch him die.
I dream that Trump is doing an election rally and attendance is mandatory.It’s night and he’s a giant –as tall as a five-story building– I’m angry and disgusted and so scared. He talks and talks and I do something very brave: I grab one of his toes. He looks down with his giant, orange, awful face.
Don’t you agree with me?
he asks.
No, I don’t. Because you’re a cheating fucking LIAR!
The crowd cheers. MAGAs body slams me like it’s the NFL, my dad has to shove them off.
The day after a war is declared. We watch on TV as our soldiers (wearing Victorian uniforms complete with lace and capes) storm into an enemy’s church and slice up their victims with shiny sabers.
Our town is deserted, everybody is hiding at home.
Dad and I go for a walk and are stopped by two guards in fascist regalia, one young and one old. The young one orders me to smash a rock into my dad’s skull, just for funsies. I need to be smart. I turn to the old man, who looks like he’s caught into something bigger than him, and say,
Can I offer you tea instead?
Relieved, the old man accepts. The tea shop is empty though, the owners have left in a hurry. We go looking for them in the building and the young man chases us up the stairs, angry and yelling, until he trips and fall. I can hear him howling in pain below us. We find the tea shop owners hiding in the attic, they ask us how bad it is outside. It’s very bad, I tell them.
I go back home and Trump’s about to come home too, he’s my stepdad now. I’m appalled at my mom’s poor judgement. I shove food in my mouth and go hide in my room. I’m still terrified.
That’s so strange how I’ve been dreaming about my old neighbor S., considering I haven’t seen the guy in years. This time he’s a teen and I steal his diary, write funny jokes on it. He’s so mad I run to the basement. I go down flights after flights of stairs, then crawl into a tunnel that gets smaller and smaller.
Another dream: I’m hearing a pitch about a new Star Wars movie, the main character is Palpatine. He towers menacingly over a young kid (Ben?) He kills and scalps a woman. He goes back home where his clone is sitting on the couch playing fantasy football. He kills the clone.
I’m back at school. The teacher is a woman, she looks a bit like a jerk; she asks how everyone’s internships are going, I raise my hand and explain that all internships are on hold until April 4th because of Coronavirus*. The teacher says don’t worry, she’ll find an activity we can all do together in the afternoons. I’m appalled because I was really looking forward to some rest and free time.
All the kids take a service elevator to the basement, it’s just four metal bars connecting a platform to a thin roof and it looks very unsafe. I take the stairs instead. I reach my class and we all sit in front of a clown, who starts entertaining us blowing swirls of smoke inside giant soap bubbles.
The blond kid sitting next to me starts punching my arm. He must be the school bully, but he grows to respect me once he realizes my arms are so strong after working at the store. The clown scolds us for talking instead of paying attention, then he says with a scorned tone that there’s someone in the room who doesn’t believe in his magic. I think he’s talking about me, but instead he points at Sabrina Spellman, who’s sitting behind me. The clown invites her to try his tricks, she blows a giant soap bubble and the smoke inside it is shaped like perfect little skulls.
When it’s my turn, I simply say I don’t smoke and up and go back home. I meet an old woman at the gate, she asks me if I’m new in the building, I say I’ve been living here my entire life. Then she asks if I have any kids, and for who knows what reason I choose to lie and say yes. She asks what their names are, I answer with my and my brother’s names. She says they sound familiar.
I step inside the building and the doors are all wrong. I walked into a maze again and by now I know it’s because I must be dreaming. I’m not gonna find my way home unless I wake up, but how am I gonna do that? I have with me a package just delivered to my brother, I start reading out loud the list of items inside the box, and just like that I wake up in my bed (not really, I’m still asleep, but in the dream I’m convinced I woke up). I decide I must have sleep-walked from the school to my room, and that’s a great trick to have up my sleeve.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 