I Want To Go Back

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

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.

Well, Shit

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I have all these little snippets of dream in my head and I can’t puzzle them together. In one scene I’m walking to work with my cousin, I tell her all the school are closed and quarantined. She laughs and says it would be cool if our store closed too. IRL my whole city is in lockdown because of Coronavirus and these words are so unsettling, somehow.

Dinner And Show

Posted on March 11, 2020March 12, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I ignore the Coronavirus lockdown and walk to the store to see how my cousin and my friend S. are doing. She’s annoyed as usual, he’s very happy to see me: he hugs me, and I notice his hair is longer and dyed blonde.

They invite me to have dinner at my cousin’s place. Unlike IRL, she lives in a small studio in a beehive-like building, with apartment nestled within each other and connected by outdoor stairs. Helen Mirren lives there in the building, I see her going up the stairs.

They sit on the living room couch, I sit on a chair behind them. We eat dinner and watch a new Doctor Who episode on an old TV set, maybe thirty or forty years old. In the episode, Yaz acts so in love with the Doctor that I’m moved to tears.

It’s getting late. S. turns off the TV and gives me a big hug before leaving, apparently he lives upstairs. My cousin orders me to go to bed, but all I want is keep watching the show. I try to lower the volume so I won’t wake her up but the remote has so many buttons and it’s too complicated. The screen explodes and falls into my hands, it’s just a net made of metallic wire.

My cousin is really mad at me now. She calls me selfish, says she wishes she had what I have, a laptop to watch movies in bed instead of just one old crappy TV. I don’t get it, she’s so rich, why doesn’t she buy one?

House Call

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

It’s morning, I’m walking to the store when I hear my boss calling my name with a weak, whiny tone. Her voice comes from a house alongside the road: IRL that house simply doesn’t exist, there are only trees in that area, but in the dream I see a small yellow duplex covered in dried vines.

*(Photo by Eduard Militaru on Unsplash)*

I go inside the door on the right, I see a one room apartment with a large bed. Boss Lady is in the bed, hair all tousled and looking sick and miserable. The floor is covered in used paper tissues. I avert my eyes because it looks all too intimate, and I wonder where her dogs are. Just then a man arrive, a dog sitter no doubt, leading the two dachshunds on a leash. I take them both and they fall asleep on my lap.

They neighbor family arrives, I can see them clearly because there’s no walls inside the duplex. They sit all around the bed and start reminiscing about a lawyer who used to live here in the house. He was found guilty of murder, and everyone agrees it’s such a shame, he was such a distinguished man. I leave the house so I don’t have to admit to these rich people that I believe the lawyer was definitely guilty.

Work Day

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m late for work, and I don’t even have my coat because I came home for lunch wearing my employee jacket. As I rush out in the cold my sister is sitting in front of the TV watching Sailor Moon.

In town I come across two old ladies, they are hanging outside an ice cream parlor and talking about phones. I stop and invite them to visit my store. They ask me if I’ve already done my homework. I say,

Ma’am, I’m 33.

The store looks exactly like my home, but there are a bunch of desks in the living room, with girls sitting at them working. Boss Lady calls to announce she’s running a fever and will have to stay at home.

I go to my room, where my cat is sleeping. Just then Boss Lady arrives even though she said she wouldn’t, and she looks pale and sick, with bags under her eyes. A coworker whispers to me that she looks horrible, B.L. turns around angrily and asks what we are talking about. I try to look innocent and say we’re just really worried about her. I go back to my job which is apparently cooking, and we are using Bluetooth plates to share recipes.

Now I’m watching (or living?) a movie about an Indian woman flying to Italy to visit her children and grandchildren. Her plane crashes, killing her husband. She is confined in an embassy, where she has a series of wacky hijinks with ladies of all nationalities.

The woman wants to reach her family in northern Italy, but a massive flood is stopping her. Meanwhile her family is watching the flood on the news: the pets recognize their owners’ grandmother on TV and leave on a crazy adventure to try and rescue her.

Four More Snippets

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I remember this little scene: my coworker S. tells me to take 20 from the cash register and then he hugs me. It feels really nice.

A young man with red hair and glasses knocks at my door. He’s carrying orange flyers and I can tell he’s from a rival phone company. I smile, cross my arms and lean against the door. “Ok, convince me,” I say.

I have a baby with me! Not mine technically, but a sibling’s. I think it’s a boy at first but it’s actually a black-haired girl named Logan. Then I’m sitting at a trial where they’re deciding who’s gonna take care of the baby, and I realize I’m inside an actual TV soap opera.

I watch an old Star Wars movie set in the 1970s. The characters are high school students, they form a band to join in a musical contest, Luke Skywalker is playing the electric guitar and Princess Leia is the drummer. They lose against two white kids rapping, but it’s amazing to see them dancing on stage. I feel so lucky to have new footage after all these years, especially of Carrie Fisher.

Four Snippets

Posted on March 3, 2020March 12, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

There’s been a murder inside a big, white cathedral, two people, quite gruesome by the look of it. I’m with a couple of friends, one of them is my old classmate L. We are not allowed to go inside, but we leave a sad note with a fountain pen and our best wavy handwriting.

It’s a foggy, dark day. I meet both my grandmothers: they are sitting together on a bench outside a house. Grandma G. gives me a ring, it’s silver and heavy, I snatch it out of her hand right away with no shame. I tell them both to be careful and stay safe from the Coronavirus outbreak.

I’m at home, but home is a small RV. I’m waiting for my penpal C. to visit as she promised, because I want to propose to her. She arrives at night, wearing a white spring dress and pushing a shopping cart. She slips in my tiny bed.

It’s Easter, I’m celebrating with my siblings but I’m also missing work. I feel a bit guilty about it, and just then my boss shows up and looks at me and I can tell she’s silently judging me. I have my period and bad cramps, but I tell her I’m gonna wash my face, put my jeans on and go to work.

Soup and Wine

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m building a pyramid of merch to put in front of the store (like I’m supposed to IRL tomorrow morning), except it’s not phones, it’s jars of chicken broth, each one in its brown paper box. One of the jars is empty, I fill it with cheap soup from a can and run around the store looking for the box. My boss is rather annoyed about it all, she takes me to the side and reveals that she’s pregnant with twins, so she’s going home.

Now there’s a bunch of children in the store and we are supposed to learn how to take care of them. We watch “Mary Poppins and the False Gospel“, a modified version of the beloved movie set during Hanukkah. Even in the dream I surprised this thing exists.

My middle school teacher, sweet Mrs R, arrives to continue the lessons. She draws and ink a really good picture of a man riding a motorcycle, and my dad starts coloring it with brown watercolors. I’m jealous because they are both such good artists.

On my way home I kill the mayor of a small town and take his ruby ring. By killing him I gained the right to own his big old mansion, I find a nice bottle of red wine hidden inside it. I go home and find my late grandpa P. sitting at the living room table. He loves wine so I give him the bottle and he’s rather happy.

Pigs and Veggie Bowls

Posted on February 27, 2020February 28, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

I’m at a hair salon inside the mall; my hair is big and bushy, Hermione Granger style, and I desperately need a haircut. The place’s owner is a scrawny guy with an evil smirk, he shaves off a patch of hair in the back of my head, so it looks like I’m going bald, and then kicks me out. I’m desperate because I’ll have to shave everything off now.

I wake up in the morning to find my sister sitting on the living room floor, I’m enraged because she’s supposed to be at her own house, I tell her that she’s not gonna sleep in my room. She locks herself in the bathroom and I start banging on the door because I’m late for school. I don’t know if I went to school at all these past days, I can’t remember. Then I realize that’s because I went to work instead.

I arrive in my classroom and I’m greeting by the usual philosophy teacher, he announces we are going on a school trip. A moment later I’m sitting at lunch in a hotel dining room, so I wonder how I got there if I was at home with my sister in the morning. We are given free food samples, they come in small packages and one of them is pink and says “tuna for cats”.

We are brought bowls of veggie soup, I’m about to dig in mine when another girl opens one of her little packages and pours some truly nasty stuff in my bowl, so now I can’t eat anymore. As I wait for the others to finish I happen to fart; it’s just a little toot, but there’s no hiding it so I say “Sorry” out loud. One of the teachers says,

There are some people that never apologize, and that’s bad. But there are also people who apologize when it’s too late and the room already stinks.

We are shown a video taken from a security cam in the city of Venice, where we were apparently visiting that morning. I see myself on the screen as the chubby teen I used to be in high school, I’m reading a book and some bad guys steal it. I chase them down some tunnels, I cringe watching myself because I run so awkwardly.

Now we are led outside, where we see a beautiful pink sunset against the mountains. I take some pictures of the sky and of some local kids that are doing somersaults. A group of pigs are crossing a little fence, they are also pink and shiny and beautiful. They are led by a girl and her grandfather, who is a white haired detective Columbo. I take pictures of the pigs too and my teacher says I shouldn’t because it’s rude. Columbo says it’s all right, as long as I send him prints.

Sweet Tooth

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Decade Dream Journal

My mother tells me I cannot go to work because it’s snowing outside. I start to get dressed anyway, I know a little snow won’t be a good enough excuse. I call my cousin to ask how it’s looking, and suddenly I’m in her car and she’s driving me to the store. I’m mad because I still had to brush my teeth and wash my hair.

We stop to get breakfast at the bar near the store: now it’s a dark and golden, decadent pastry shop. I sneak in the bathroom to finish washing myself, it’s so small I get claustrophobic. My cousin has bought a slice of cake, I also go to take a good look at the pastries. They are magnificent, they have rococo name tags that make the place feel like Versailles.

I approach the ice cream counter and ask if they’ve got anything caramel. A man shows me green ice cream with a layer of thick caramel on top, he says it’s prehistoric mango and starts scooping it on top of a cone, then adds strawberry. I tell him,

You’re not gonna make me eat fruit when it’s snowing outside!

He looks embarrassed and puts the cone away. I go back to the pastries and ask again if there’s anything with caramel. The girl behind the counter shows me a truly enormous pastry, it’s shaped a bit like a lamp and covered in purple icing. I decide what the hell, I deserve a little pick-me-up, if it’s too expensive I can always pay with my credit card. My cousin tells me my pastry is embarrassing to look at and I will have to eat it in the back of the store, away from out customers.

We go to the cashier, who is Emma Pillsbury from Glee. She sees my big paper bag and wants to see the lamp pastry inside. When I show it to her she cries because it’s so beautiful. The pastry costs 4.15, so I don’t have to use my credit card after all.

(I did buy myself some caramel ice cream this afternoon. It was too salty)

DECADE DREAM JOURNAL