I go to the store as usual in the morning, but there are new coworkers I’ve never seen and all the desks are occupied. I sit on a small chair on the side, my boss sits next to me, opens her planner to scribble something, and I see she’s been testing fountain pens on a page. Enthusiastically I whip out my own journal and show her the pens I’ve been testing myself.
Then I remember I’m supposed to go to the job center and I’m already forty-five minutes late*. I sprint over and the building has been turned into an oriental garden. The employee I was supposed to meet invites me into his bamboo house and tells me it’s his birthday.
I’m at work again. I’m sorting out files when I noticed we’ve been selling bombs and missiles to our customers. I’m anxious about it, but they tell me it’s okay, that’s how life works and there’s nothing I can do about it.
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.
I’m late for school. Did I even go to school at all this past week?! I can’t remember, but I have the awful feeling the answer is no.
I’m running through town, it’s April but I’m wearing a t-shirt that says “Happy Summer!”, decorated with lemons. The sky is heavy and gray, like it’s about to rain. There’s a market in town, I think it’s odd because it’s not a Tuesday. Even though I’m late, I stop at a stand that sells notebooks to take a look; they are all a bit wrinkled, like they’ve been rained upon.
I suddenly realize I’m an adult and not in school anymore, I need to go to the vet clinic instead!* I can’t remember when my shift starts though, I rush back home and ask my dad. He doesn’t remember either. I missed work for the past two days, I can’t miss today too! Maybe if I told them I was at school instead. It’s an easy mistake to make, I’m sure they’ll understand.
No, I realize with even more panic, I don’t work at the clinic anymore, I need to go to the phone store instead!! But I don’t know the way, and it’s so late, and I don’t even have my coworker’s number.
I’m once again with Boss Lady and my cousin G. It’s a sunny day, we are in a garden and I’m presented with a square wooden drawer with a bunch of holes on each side. My job is to insert a socket wrench in every hole and rotate the wooden panels until a certain font is selected.
There are high school kids playing volleyball nearby. My cousin wants to join them, I remind her she’s an adult now and can’t compete with them. The kids are mocking me, I become very upset.
Back home my sister also teases me about the giant tree house I built, with a big green vine to make climbing easier. I’m still so upset I yell at her, and then yell at her boyfriend. I tell him he’s an asshole, he can see how my sister is treating me, how she’s treating her whole family and he never says anything to her.
Back in my room, alone, I start crying. I whisper to myself that I only yelled because I’m so lonely.
My brother and I are watching a special DVD edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with two whole disks of extra content.
There is a deleted scene with Harry and Ron on a pirate ship. It’s a red and gold steamer with three black funnels, it’s smaller than a regular ship and it belongs to Captain Hook. Harry and Ron have been kidnapped along with other children, at twelve they are taller than the others so they try their best to look scared and innocent. I think it’s great to see them both so young again, it’s like going back in time.
More deleted scenes are shown, one is just a storyboard, one is really bad CGI, in one we see Harry from afar but it’s clearly a body double with glasses and gray hair. One scene is preserved only thanks to a couple of Indian voice actors in their booth, Hermione is too high-pitched but the boy playing Harry sounds remarkably like him. My sister catches us watching and says she’ll want to watch all the extras too when she comes back home.
I’m now at work, from my desk I can see inside my boss’ office because there is a closet missing, and apparently there never was a wall behind it. A customer is inside, I’m supposed to transfer her mobile data from her old umbrella to a new one. I ask my cousin for help and she tells me to use a standard cable.
Boss Lady walks out, demands to know why Saturday’s files weren’t archived. I promise her I archived everything I was given that evening and somebody must have hidden some files from me. Cousin G. gives me a new task, to wash our uniforms in a bin outside. I set to work in a sunny garden, and I wash with such gusto that I somehow end up drying the clothes as well. Boss Lady is even more impressed when I kill a mosquito that was walking on her neck.
I go back home and my sister is sitting on the living room floor. I’m really heartbroken because I was hoping she’d be gone forever.
I wake up and fall asleep again for a few minutes before my alarm rings. I dream about having to carry an old dying man to Hell. His wife is asleep in their room, unaware of what is happening. I take the man by the hand and we fly away, stars and building zooming behind us.
Once arrived to Hell, a demon cuts the old man’s penis off. He won’t need it anymore, the demon explains.
I need to go to the hospital to get my blood tested. It’s almost 11 in the morning and I’m running late, but I decide to stop at a local bookstore.
Sitting at the counter inside the store there is my nosy, gossipy neighbor C. She eyes me suspiciously and asks me why I’m not at work. I explain I’m going to the hospital, she doesn’t seem convinced. A bit miffed, I ask if she has The Secret of NIMH books, she says absolutely not. I’m sure I saw a children’s book with Mrs. Brisby on it, right there near the entrance, but maybe I’m mistaken?
I don’t want to argue, so I leave the store. I look at my watch (I’m wearing an old analog watch on my wrist) and see it’s still 11. Then I remember the hospital does blood work only very early in the morning, so my neighbor must have thought I was lying! Also, I forgot all my prescription papers at home, and I somehow have in my pocket my old Nokia phone from fifteen years ago. I have no choice but go back home.
I explain to my mother what happened, she says there’s still a little time to go to the hospital. When we arrive, it’s 8 P.M. and the long hallways are bathed in twilight. There are a lot of people waiting, I see a young blonde woman lounging on a chair, she is wearing a lilac shirt and looks bored out of her mind.
A doctor peeks inside the waiting room, she asks if there are any patients here to see doctor Hans (or a German-sounding name like that). Mom realizes this is who we need to see and chases the doctor in the hallway. I think maybe I won’t be waiting so long after all.
I’m at the store working with my cousin G. A tall guy walks in and start arguing with G., so I take him to the side trying to calm him down. He’s truly massive, I’m barely taller than his elbow, and his arms are bigger than a tree trunk. He’s very young though, his face looks dopey and lost. I ask him gently if he’d like to do something with his life and come work with us at the store. He says he’ll think about it.
It’s getting late and I want to go home for the night, but our boss shows up and recruits us for one last mission: turns out our store offers ninja services too! Cousin G., Boss Lady and I, dressed in black to hide in the darkness, start climbing a glass skyscraper. The two of them are very agile and I feel incompetent. A group of enemy ninjas attacks us and we fend them off with big plastic weapons.
We finally reach the top of the building and now it’s time to sneak inside the penthouse, where a big party is happening. I fill my backpack with junk food, potato chips, soda cants etc., so if I get caught I can say I was just stealing party food instead of something much more important.
The man we are looking for, a tux-wearing, Bond-esque villain, escapes on his expensive car, we chase him up the mountains. The road is curvy and snowy and I’m surprised I don’t get car sick. We reach a mountain lodge where we quickly kidnap the villain’s wife. Fjord from Critical Role joins us, he tricks the man into drinking wine spiked with tranquilizer, and we kidnap him as well. Unfortunately he’s a charming villain and our group of ninjas is soon suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Not long after, all the girls in the group are getting mani-pedis from him.
This is a recurring dream: IRL there are only three supermarkets in my town, all from the same big chain, and it drives me crazy because there’s no variety in the food and prices.
In tonight’s dream there are even more, infuriatingly identical, stores, all in the same neighborhood and at a walking distance from each other. To add insult to injury, I work inside one of the stores along with my cousin G. She tells me it doesn’t matter which store I choose to work in each morning, nobody seems to care as long as I wear my red employee jacket.
Mom needs a new phone, it’s time to scout each of these stores to find the perfect one. I team up with my cousin and sister: our first location is the supermarket where I supposedly work every day, it’s small, crowded, messy and smells rather bad. The second supermarket is larger, cleaner, airy, it has barely any people in it. Feels like paradise and I’m jealous.
We visit all the stores but come up empty handed; there is no trace of Mom’s perfect phone. Dejected, we stop to buy some consolatory ice cream. Inside the parlor we meet an employee from the big, clean supermarket, she’s wearing an aqua uniform and works at the bread counter. She looks plump, healthy and relaxed, she tells us she’s on an ice cream break because nobody ever visits her store. I’me even more jealous.
Mom decides we’re gonna buy the phone out of town. Dad is pouting on the couch with his comfiest hoodie on, he categorically refuses to drive us anywhere. I’m outraged. I tell him with tears in my eyes that it’s Sunday, and Sunday is my only chance in the whole long week to go for a little trip. He finally agrees. My parents go to the car, I want to follow but I’m not wearing any shoes. The one pair I can find is too small, I try frantically to put them on, give up and run down the stairs with my heels pocking out from the shoes.
Dad and I are watching a movie. It’s very experimental, during the opening credits we see the landscape running away as if it was filmed from a car, from a window here and a tree there certain images or words pop up, conveying a dreamy, hopeful mood. Dad is impressed and asks me if I ever saw anything like it. I say no.
The movie begins properly and we are both taken aback to discover it’s not recent, but a vintage one with Sophia Loren speaking a passable English. The scene is set on my house’s balcony and neither of us question that.
My penpal C. has come to visit, but every time I turn my back or move to another room I forget what she looks like, I keep needing to go check again. Eventually I learn that she has short blonde hair and a bit of a plain face (nothing like IRL C.): she looks like a less attractive Saoirse Ronan, but I’m not that pretty either so I think we’re reasonably well-matched. I want to impress her, so I tell her my family has an acting tradition; why, even Sophia Loren filmed in this house! C. likes acting, I reason, hopefully she’ll want to marry me and take my genes, even though we’re both girls and that’s not how it works.
I’m late for school! As I look for my coat she protests out loud. I need to go to these classes, I explain, or I’ll have to repeat the year come September. Her mom is now in the room with us, sitting in an armchair and talking about boys, oblivious to what’s happening. C. gets really, really close and pins me to a wall, I feel her warm breath as she asks me,
“Remember what we did to that donut last year?”
I whisper yes, she asks if I’d like to do that again. “Yes,” I say trembling,”if you want to.” She’s about to kiss me, when I wake up.
I fall asleep again and dream the same dream. Now I’m running to get to school in time, I have to attend at least 70% of my classes and I’m not about to skip them this afternoon. When I arrive though, I realize with horror I’m not in my usual class with the boring philosophy professor, I went to work instead! Except work is a greenhouse miles from where I’m supposed to be, and what’s worse, I’m not wearing any shoes.
Two friends come to the rescue, they are two young men. I get in their car and one of them borrows me his shoes, because we are the same size, don’t I know? I congratulate myself, I’m so smart for remembering such a crucial detail, my narrative skills are on point even when I’m dreaming. We are showed a flashback where the friend buys me a pair of cool shoes, yellow and blue.
The car crosses a bridge, I notice racists graffiti on the walls. I look at the time, it’s almost six and I only have one hour left to not completely waste my evening. Unless… unless I was actually in a coma, in a tank full of red water and electric eels, and I never left the house. I missed school, I’ll never graduate now.
I’m in the TARDIS and possibly the Doctor. A portal opens and the new Master and Missy strut in. They are Doctor Who villains and technically the same person, but in this dream they are married and have a little girl with brown curls. Some time passes, another portal opens and now it’s Missy alone with her newborn, who is a boy instead of a girl! Since I’m the Doctor and clever, I realize this version of Missy comes from the past and I must have swapped her real child, the boy, to protect him from the Master. Missy makes a face (Michelle Gomez makes very entertaining faces even in my dreams!) and says she will pretend to love her fake daughter, “if she really must”. I know she’s lying and she’s really lonely, because I’m the Doctor and I’m clever! This is what happens when I watch a Doctor Who episode before going to sleep.
I’m half awake and I dream that I’m at work scanning documents. Scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 