The book of mars

Dream Graduation

It’s the first day of my senior year. Most of the student body is sitting on a giant multi-tier bench system that isn’t quite bleachers. It’s in the middle of a giant intersection downtown. All of us are seated by popularity, with the most popular at the bottom with no one in front of us so we can see the “show” that’s going to happen. I happen to be in the very front row (though I was never that popular). From where the benches are, we can see upper main street which trails off and turns a corner. It’s sloped quite a bit more than usual.

The “show” starts. All of the “really really cool” fashionably dressed kids come out and use main street like a runway. The first is this big black guy who was never dressed nicely at all, but he was wearing some classy clothes (classy in dream terms: truthfully it was quite wacky). A few more people trickle out of some building passed the curve of the street. None are girls!

As the fashion students strut around downtown, the whole world turns, or at least the benches we are on. If one starts walking down the street instead of up, all of us lean toward that end of the street. I am so scared that I’m going to fall off the bench which would be really embarrassing. Whenever the benches turn, I grab onto the girl next to me: a girl I know in waking life, Hilary. Behind me, my ex-boyfriend Dylan is sitting. In my dream, they are dating, so it’s awkward that I’m holding onto his new girlfriend pretty tightly.

Once the show is over, all the fashionably dressed popular students are allowed to look around main street alone; we are all here to visit the new shops on the first day of school. I realize that we will be able to join them row by row and I’m in the first row. I panic because that means all the still-sitting students will watch what I look at. My row is dismissed.

I walk around kind of hazily and embarrassed for a few minutes, waiting to see someone I know on the street and for the rest of the rows to come join us. Eventually they do but I can’t find anyone I know. I decide to spend my time as I should: looking at the new places.

The first place I see is a new tattoo shop right next to our older one. It’s called Astral Tattoos and it isn’t an actual store, it’s a pink and green painted wooden booth. They’re selling body modification, tattoos and henna tattoos. I don’t pay attention to what else or what specifically the tattoos are, but I imagine they’d be interesting.

I find my brother Holden (who doesn’t go to my school) and follow him around until we are all brought into the big building at the end of the street. It’s the high school (not where it usually is, it also looks very different).

Inside, we are all wearing our caps and gowns now. Everyone’s color is maroon; it’s our school colors (not in waking life). I follow a few students who are in front of me, because we are arranged alphabetically. Steven and Jamal are before me and Adam is in back of me, although all of them have last names that are in back of where I would have been. I’m really nervous and walk into the bathroom for a moment, look at myself and walk back out. We are led into the auditorium of the school which is absolutely huge and decorated with maroon everything.

I sit down in my row with Steven next to me. Jamal isn’t here so there’s an empty seat. As the students are being shuffled in, I question where I am.

“Is this a dream?” I look around but make up a history to make sense of where I am: yes, the graduation memory that comes to mind is actually when I graduated junior year. Now it’s senior year, so this is real life. Wasted dream check.

Behind me, Martin who is a junior but is sitting with the seniors is handing out camera kits for us to use. I go to grab one but realize that I don’t talk to him a lot and that would be weird and he’d want someone he knows to have them.

While I sit and wait for the ceremony to start, I look at a pamphlet that I have in my hands. It has a bunch of activities we were supposed to do while downtown. They include things like woodworking, pottery, volleyball, etc. I didn’t sign up for anything. I wake up.


Fragment

Heather invites me to her house. It’s a huge place and her room is the size of a usual upstairs area in a normal sized house. We go passed her room which is quite barren. We seem to be in the attic. In back of her room she has a big stage that’s halfway on the house, halfway on the roof with wide glass windows containing a backstage area. She begins to dance with life-sized puppets as her back up dancers. The music plays and she steps into the darkness about half-way on the stage, the dancers follow, and everyone glows in the dark.


Fragment 2

I remember eating a lot of maple sugar through a straw out of this tiny dollhouse. I drained it of maple sugar and felt sick. I could see all the sugar particles in my thigh which was where I would gain the weight if I didn't start running. The radio started to play and a commercial was discussing weight gain.

"Usually when people eat fatty foods, they will gain weight. However, some people have a large amount of bridges in their body which distributes the fat evenly, so they don't gain any weight." I knew I had a lot of "bridges" in my body and didn't worry.