I dream that weather has suddenly warmed up, to the point it’s now summer. My sister is back home and we’re sharing a room once again, like when we were children; for once I’m not angry about it. She wants to go to sleep and I do too because I’m exhausted, but my pajamas are too warm and I need to find a t-shirt, also I’m 1000 steps short of my daily pedometer goal. I lay on the bed and start kicking my legs in the air, hoping it will help.
Tag: summer
Summer, Spring
It’s summer and I’m watching the night sky with my dad. The constellations are enormous and so clear, we can tell the images apart so easily. I point out a pharaoh, then a flying bat, then a gargoyle.
It’s Easter, I’m supposed to share a room with both my sister and my cousin, I am angry about it. I kick them out, then I realize I have to work with my cousin and she is going to make my life a living hell.
Magical Night at the Lake
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 actually want to do this IRL.
A Stroll Turned Violent
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.
Adventures in (fake) Baby Sitting
I need to leave the house in a hurry: I signed up for some classes and I’m late, but I keep forgetting something and having to come back. At one point I realize I even forgot my underwear, and there’s even a pretty girl laughing at me. My building is a maze (that’s another recurring dream of mine) and I can’t find my way back.
Eventually I’m ready and running through my town; the streets are more colorful somehow, people are wearing summer clothes and palm trees are greener, I feel like I’m in California. There’s a giant papier-maché head peeking out from a roof, it’s bright pink and I want to take a picture of it. But I’m late! And what’s worse, I suddenly remember I need to go to work, so I have no choice but text an excuse to my classes’ group chat. They all rage against my job, they say my boss is overworking me and paying too little.
Turns out I’m a baby sitter, my charge is a little boy named Marcus, son of a rich, somewhat bossy couple. I show his mother a painting on my notebook, tell her Marcus made it. She’s skeptical though, so I have to admit it’s actually by my friend F. But Marcus helped!
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 