ErraticHopper
Member

This is Day 42 because I noted some fragments during the competition, and forgot to send them in...

Two dreams tonight!

I'm inside a house, in a white dress, holding a baby. The front door opens and a man enters, he's wearing a hat and sunglasses and his expressionless, confident manner creeps me out. It seems I'm used to his entry, and I keep my head down and stand still while he walks up and down the living room before leaving. I don't remember arriving - I get the feeling I've been here for a long, long time.

Sometime later, my parents have come to visit, and I break down. "I don't want to live here," I sob. My dad pats me on the back but they both have expressions of not knowing what to say. This house looks a lot like my own house.

I'm outside, standing near the bottom level of a sort of Roman amphitheatre, a hand resting on the iron fence surrounding the arena. A soft shawl wraps around my shoulders. The theatre is sandstone-coloured and completely empty, weeds springing up through cracks in the stone. A man approaches from the arena and we talk for a while. I feel relaxed and peaceful, breezes are blowing.

Then I am in the house once more. I go to open the front door and let my mother in. She is outside and a little way back, waiting, is the creepy man. I hurriedly usher her in and shut the door in his face - I don't want him here today. Through the peephole I can see his face peering boredly in.

I show her into the lounge, and wanting to be far away from the man at the front door, suggest we go and stand by the far window. She agrees and we walk to the back of the room, gazing out. And then, the creepy man steps into view. He's come around the back of the house to the very edge of the window. I stand frozen in apprehension and he, too, is still - until he winds up his arm and smashes a wooden chair through the glass. Still expressionless, he moves to climb through the window. My mother and I seize another chair and use it to hit him and push him back. He doesn't yield.

Suddenly my dad is here, and so are the police. They have a 'stun gun' - not a taser but actually a tranquilliser gun with very short darts - and start shooting rapidly towards the man, and us behind him.

He's knocked out, but I feel and see a dart pierce my skin. I try to tell my dad that I've been hit, but no-one is listening and I feel my eyelids growing heavy. My eyes close as I'm babbling, grabbing at his arm.


2

I'm on a 'snowmobile'. No idea how those are actually supposed to look or what they do, but mine has a wide driver's seat and wheel, two seats behind and one on the back facing backwards. I drive it through the market street in the evening when who should I run into but a boy from my primary school (who I actually just met yesterday for the first time in ages) and his friends. We both exclaim at the coincidence and they ride on my snowmobile for a short distance. They drop off as I turn out of a narrow street onto the main road.


Regarding the first dream, the setting was a sort of dystopian society under heavy surveillance. I don't know how to fit it into the journal, it was just a feeling I had; the creepy man was there to watch me and how I lived. The baby might not have been mine, either.

SPRING COMPETITION NIGHT 7

I'm at home, in my room. It's the holidays and I'm not doing much - just lazing around on the floor, in a T-shirt and shorts and looking out of the window. It's sunny outside.

I receive a delivery of a big box of pastries, from school, for the prefects. There's a note from a teacher explaining that, since we're not at school, she sent them here instead (FYI I'm the head of the prefects). I guess she wanted me to distribute them, but it's the holidays after all, and I don't know where everyone lives. Also I really can't be bothered. I'm in a lazy mood. I eat some - probably more than my fair share - close the box and lay back down.

The next day I wake up to a message in the prefect group chat (from someone who's not even a prefect IRL). She mentions the pastries and that everyone's looking forward to them. I start to feel guilty for not handing them out and remember some other things I forgot to do. I hope everyone won't notice how scatterbrained I've been.

I go into school. There aren't many people, but in the school hall are some younger year girls in the centre of the room. They've built a rather wobbly (I tried to climb it) staircase out of some big plastic boxes and a desk chair, up to a high table. One of the steps is a block of something white and strange - I think they said it was squid - and a blonde girl refuses to go up it. The girl who placed it there complains that her friend doesn't understand the true usefulness of squid. I laugh at the girls and ask what they think they're doing.

I go up to a whitewashed classroom on the second floor, which seems to be our room in this dream. There's no-one in there but plenty of sunlight coming in through the windows. I think that I'd better get the pastries - and then I remember that I threw them out! I have a vision of the box left on top of a broken desk chair and a heap of cardboard boxes in an alley. I panic. What should I do? I know everyone else will arrive soon. I leave the room and run down the hall. In another room, bizarrely, I find the box. Although I don't understand how they could be there, I'm relieved and bring them back to the classroom.

Such a strange dream... At least things worked out in the end. Actually this is the first time I've eaten food in a dream! A milestone - though I don't think it counts for points if the dream isn't lucid. I can't remember how they tasted, alas.

P.S. I like to dress smartly and I would never wear a t-shirt and shorts, even on holiday!

I'm in a sparse one-room cabin high up on a hill. The hill is steep and covered with green.

Then, I'm sitting about halfway up the tiered seating (this is also very steep), in the middle of a lecture theatre, listening to a lecture. I can't remember what it was about now but I felt moved and I remember discussing it with the man sitting next to me. I thought he was in the anime club and I remembered that I'm in that club.

When the lecture ends, I head to the anime club room. It comes is off a high-up hallway, seeming to float over the hillside, bridging two towers together. The sky is dark now and it's pretty dim and shadowy up there. I am the first one to arrive. There's a smallish room with three long tables and benches, and an even smaller one through a door at the back of it which is either an office or a cloakroom.

Two women arrive, one blonde and one brown-haired. They sit down and, unusually forward for me, I ask the brunette (she's closer): ' Hi, What's your name?'. She tells me, it's a pretty normal one, and asks enthusiastically what my subjects are. I tell her that I'm studying Italian, French and Latin!

Then she goes into the back room and I slide along the bench to be opposite the blonde girl. I ask her name. "Don't laugh," she says, "My name is Tickdick." I'm slightly incredulous and she explains its meaning to me.

More people come in. I look around the room and now apart from the women I spoke to I see several men all in the same pale blue waistcoat. I remember thinking that I didn't expect there to be so many men in this club.

Later, after everyone has left and the room has grown even darker, my friend (IRL) comes in and we talk.

She speaks about how many girls in the school (including her) are now in lesbian relationships after failed relationships with non-binary people. They weren't sure about their sexualities when they previously said they were bi. I say something about this and she mentions that others in the school used to talk about me a lot, years back, when she was LGBT and I was the only one who supported her. I ask in interest what they said about me but I can't remember her answer.

She gets up and says she wants to go out to the field to see the olive saplings. I think that's it, at least. We leave the room and head down the hill to a bright, sunny green field nestled among the hills. There are rows of olive saplings on the hillside and rows of smaller plants below. We spend a while admiring them.

A farmer lad arrives, to take care of the field. We chat to him awhile. He needs to break down all the plants as it will help them grow. My friend protests a little but we watch him sweep his arm along the rows, breaking the stalks in two. He collects the broken tops. My friend tells him to leave those, at least -they'll dissolve into the soil and help the plants grow. He agrees and scatters them about.

Once he leaves I notice three birds glide out of a tree. They are positioned as if sitting upright with their wings folded to their backs, looking ahead. They still move forward steadily in the air. I point out to my friend how weird this is and we both stare at the birds in confusion, continuing to talk. Finally, high above the trees, I see the birds open their wings and begin flying faster, beating the air. "Of course!" I say. "They glide first, then they flap their wings to stay up!"

I enter my school's sixth form building late at night. As I head down the hall towards the dining area I can't see anything around. The hall is black carpeted and so is the larger room. The usual round tables are nowhere to be found and the serving counter is lower and farther forward than it is in real life. It's made of smooth white marble. The fridge is also shifted to the left. Though not quite real, the room is easily recognisable.

Nobody is around, but I get the impression a big gathering has just ended. Everyone else has probably gone upstairs already. (Seems like this is a dormitory in the dream - IRL there are only classrooms upstairs). There are lots of desserts left over.

On the counter are two large slate trays, each piled with jelly cut into cubes and stacked. One tray holds red jelly and the other, yellow. In the fridge is another tray of orange jelly and a cake liberally piped with cream on the top and around the sides. A few slices have already been cut out. Pitchers of clear juice or squash are on the shelf, one cherry-pink and one orange. I love desserts. I'm thrilled and head over to fill a plate.

I am really annoyed that I don't remember anything more! I've yet to taste food in a dream, still.

A room in the school with a large oval-shaped wooden table in the centre. Books and folders are around, stacked and leaning inside the filing cabinets which line the walls. I am there, another student (who I recognise) and a teacher. We are in discussion, then we leave to head to assembly, shutting the door behind us.

She and I enter assembly in the hall. There is a stage at the front of the room with floor-to-ceiling red curtains hanging open at the back. Everyone sits facing the stage on blue mats on the floor, shaped like those foam pool floats (kickboards?) that I learnt to swim with when I was a kid. There are three mats on a thick blue runner which are set aside for us two to sit on. I sit in front of her, but there's not enough space so I end up leaning on her legs a little. I look to my right and see that all the blue mats on the floor around seem minuscule, smaller than my fingernail, like scales.

As the assembly goes on, I'm relaxing more against her legs when she puts her arms around me from behind. I feel her hair brush my neck. I'm surprised - but it feels really warm, and I take it as affection between friends. Soon she starts lightly kissing my head and neck. I feel my whole face heat up and I'm not sure if this is still just friendly. I can't believe no-one is noticing.

This actually feels nice, but I don't know how to react, so I pull away from her a little. She loosens her arms and says, "Sorry. I just need this right now." I lean back into her hug again and she kisses my hair some more. After a short while I end up pushing her away with a brief apology. I distinctly remember thinking, 'I better remember this when I wake up...'

Well.