I dream about taking the train with my grandma. We get in the rear carriage and it looks ugly and rusty, more like an old farmer cart. When the train start the carriage breaks off! I jump out, grab the hook thingy (coupling, wikipedia says it’s called) and run like hell dragging the whole damn carriage with me, finally attaching it safely back to train. Relieved, I sit back in.
Tag: trains
I Begged And Begged But My Parents Never Took Me
I dream that I’m visiting Disneyland with my mother and sister. It’s already late in the evening and the park is about to close as I get to the little train that circles the whole area. The characters walking around are children wearing creepy, lifeless masks. They look so sad and exhausted I suggest them to unionize. They laugh.
The train ride is short, the park is smaller than what I imagined. We visit Santa Claus land, it’s full of cute animatronics but it feels wrong in July. At the end of the ride there’s a gift shop, I immediately go look for stickers but all the packets are open and half stolen. The young shop employee is blind and he can’t help me. How could Laura Bailey betray me like this? (The place was recommended by her, somehow).
I finally locate an almost intact package and demand a discount. I pay it 4 bucks.
Hey This Seems Like a Nice Dr− Nevermind It Was Anxiety All Along
I dream that I’m being visited by a young doctor, blonde, his face reminds me of a nazi soldier. I have a bruise in the crook of my arm (I just had a blood test IRL), the doctor asks me to show him, then he grabs my arm and squeezes and squeezes, the bruises grow and grow.
Then I dream that some guy is bullying me online, he wants to meet and I’m a no-show. An unknown number calls my phone, I almost don’t answer but curiosity win. It’s a girl who went on the date in my place, just in the spirit of trolling. She needs help now to take a train home because, she explains on the phone, she’s blind and not familiar with the area. Suddenly I’m on the train with her and I’m very happy to help. Too late I realize with a panic that the train is getting me further and further from home and there’s no stop until several cities over.
And yet another dream: my country has made a massive business deal with China, countless celebrities are flying over to show their support. My class goes on a trip to China too, I’m very jetlagged but nonetheless happy to go shopping. As usual all I’m looking for is some new stationary, but soon I have to start running through the local shopping center because a murder is after me.
Anyway I Miss My Grandma
The lockdown is finally over and I’m getting ready to go see Gran for the first time in two months, when the doorbell rings: it’s my uncles, and with them here comes Gran herself: the tip of her hair is still auburn but the roots have turned white. I’m too afraid to go hug her, so I sit a few feet away and quietly cry with relief in my dinner plate.
I find myself in the past, specifically in the remote year 2017. I’m on a train but I have no ticket and very little money, so I sneak out at the next stop. I land in a city I don’t know and I start looking around blindly for a hotel: maybe I can afford to stay for just one night? Or, if I get lost, I can always wake up from this dream, I reason with myself.
My hair (I have long hair, for some reason) gets stuck in the red button of a little girl’s blouse. She invites me in her house, the mother arrives and is alarmed to find a stranger, but after I explain the situation she lets me free myself from her daughter’s button, then she offers me dinner and a shower. She’s not rich, she explains, but she’s having a party tonight and she could use some more guests around the table.
As I sit down to eat, I start receiving panicked texts from my father. But wait, they are not texts, it’s my alarm ringing. And I wake up.
Soscial Distancing!
I’m walking in town, it’s evening and there are way too many people around doing their shopping, hardly anyone is wearing face masks. I am both anxious and angry. I take an escalator going underground, I’m sandwiched between a small crowd and yell,
You are all irresponsible! My grandma is immunocompromised, you are going to kill her!
A woman gets really angry at me. She is short and middle aged, with a bob of brown hair.
The escalator brings me to an underground train station− it’s not the subway though, just regular trains. A black haired girl who’s just arrived with her boyfriend waves at me, I can’t for the life of me recognize her, she must have mistaken me for somebody else. Still I ask her why she’s outside, she says according to the local news the pandemic is a hoax. I give her a long list of more reliable news channels.
Now I’m walking on a grass path in a sunny sea town. I’m still sandwiched between long lines of people and so mad I start yelling again. A bearded man glares at me, he’s wearing a fedora and underneath the brim of the hat his eyes are glowing red. He wants me to prove I’m in any danger, but I can’t. Confused, I crouch behind a wall and stare at my hands: sparkles fly from them. I realize then I’m in a virtual reality and everyone is safe. My mission is to find rainbow daffodils, I start pouring water on every flower I see hoping it’s what I’m looking for.
Trains and Cars and Superpowers
I’m at a train station trying to get home, there are some classmates with me. We check the timetables, only find one train going the right direction and it’s still hours away. There are only a few people around, I know today is supposed to be the town festival but everybody is quarantined at home.
As we climb the stairs to go look for the ticket booth, a classmate stops me. Wouldn’t I like to rent a car instead, she asks? It’s a service provided by the local hardware store and it’s only 16 bucks. I accept.
Now Steven Universe is the one who’s renting the service: along with a car it also offers a complete superpowers package. You only have to cover your body with transparent film (food wrap, basically) and you can jump very high and even fly. Steven is enjoying his new abilities and takes the chance to kiss a girl, but as soon as she feels the film on his lips she pushes him away, disgusted.
Steven is so upset he jumps on his rented car and crashes against a wall. At the hospital, while his body is in a coma, his spirit wakes up and doesn’t realize what happened; wearing only one of those backless hospital gowns, he skips around and dances outside in the garden.
I Want To Go Back
I’m at Venice’s train station, trying to get back home. According to the board there is one super fast train that goes straight to my town, it belongs to the church and one ticket it 380 bucks. I cannot afford it. As the train is about to leave the price suddenly drops to 160, and I still can’t afford it.
I wait for a slower, cheaper train, and finally I’m back home and can hug my parents. I have an electric fan going in my room even though it’s only march, and my underwear drawer is empty because my cousin stole them all. I tell her I want to go back to work even amid the outbreak.
Boss Lady calls me, says I can come back as long as I take a shower before going home from the store. I download a shower from the Sims game, the outdoor kind that uses bottled water. It’s so small I can carry it in the palm of my hand, Boss Lady is fascinated by it.
An Unlucky Trip
There’s a young woman walking on a frozen river. She is holding a wrapped box, inside there is a chocolate heart. A group of guys have ruined the heart, walked over it and left a big footprint. Now they’re sitting in their car, which is also on the frozen river, and mocking her.
The woman smiles at them, open the box and eats a piece of the chocolate heart with the footprint on it. She offers them a bite too, and there’s an evil glint in her eyes. They look scared now.
A customer at the store has refused to pay me 15 bucks. I go to her house, sit in her living room, drink a tea with her and explain that she’s stealing those money from my paycheck. She’s very sorry about it, she doesn’t have any money but offers me a tube of toothpaste and a big honey jar instead. Later that night, my boss sees the honey on her desk and is very impressed: it’s apparently super expensive.
I’m at home but it’s not my IRL home, the tiles in the bathroom are dark and the toilet is bright yellow, with a big splash of water coming from the side and landing gracefully inside the hole.
I leave for work, drive for a bit but then remember I don’t have a license and switch to a bicycle. Once arrived, my cousin invites me to come along for a trip with her friends. I accept, but not very enthusiastically.
We visit a city in Tuscany where it’s pouring rain, I have a big umbrella with me but it’s broken. We go to the train station in the evening, but we’ve already ran out of money and all the trains have been cancelled. We have to wait for someone to collect us, and eventually end up in front of a police captain: she’s sitting behind her desk sipping a glass of red wine, has Jessica Fletcher hair and a really rude attitude.
One of the girls in the group asks me if I slept at all, because we (platonically) shared a bed and she says I elbowed her all night. I say I definitely slept, and to prove it I tell her what I dreamed about:
Rebel Wilson gave me some toothpaste and a jar of honey.
I decide to go back home, because I don’t want to miss any more work. And just like that I’m sitting on my parents’ living room floor; they haven’t noticed me yet.
My uncle D. rings the doorbell, I open the door and see him in the hallway, standing next to a short man with glasses. He’s our trip organizer, I’m furious with him because we finished all the money on our first day! He promises his math was sound, takes out a beautiful artbook and start scribbling numbers on the illustrated pages with two brush pens, one black and one white, but he’s pressing too hard and ruining the nips. I get even angrier because he’s spending money on expensive stationary without even knowing how to use it.
My alarm rings as I’m still yelling at him.
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.
One-Two Chicken
I’m with my sister on the beach. We’ve been fighting lately, but we apparently made peace in my dreams. She puts on her sunglasses, slathers herself with cream and proceeds to sunbathe like a lizard; meanwhile I stay fully clothed because I’m shy.
Times flies and it’s soon time to go back home, she has to pay for our train tickets because I only have five bucks on me. On the train I’m reading a Mickey Mouse comic strip, my sister reads from over my shoulder and chatters on about the artist, apparently a favorite of hers. “See how Goofy really moves like a dog,” she says enthusiastically. Horace is buff, like veins bulging ripped for who knows what reason.
I keep on reading, there’s a two pages interview with a Spanish-speaking comic book writer named Ricardo Pollo. I start chuckling uncontrollably, my sister asks why so I explain: the guy has a son who was born on January the second, and thus he named the poor kid “One Two Pollo.” In the dream, I find that utterly hysterical.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 