Dreaming in Digital

20200530

I was with a group of kids who all seemed to be family. There was a daughter and two boys. The world had also been savagely torn apart by the effects of a virus that never completely wore out. This girl, with dark pigtailed braids, and her family had fallen to hard times, falling into poverty. I followed them underground, to the PATH to scavenge for supplies and goods that could be sold for a handful of gold. We split from her brothers, and the boys took a different route to scavenge. When we met up, we had conversations about whether the items we found were valuable.

I was part of a teenage girl's wedding, and I didn't know the couple. We were practising the ceremony in a community centre. She handed me a kitten, who constantly mewed. The bride asked me to be careful of her front right paw, as she'd hurt it. The kitten was her flower girl, and I wondered if it would be carried down the aisle. I snuggled the kitten, rubbing my face in its fuzz, and I wondered if it was hypoallergenic. I am allergic to cats.

At first, I watched my partners stalk around a location, on a mission to find a certain man. I don't remember what happened, but they were successful.

Then it was my turn. My partner was a man named Josh. He was tall, in his mid-20s with dark hair. With us was a younger woman with white-blonde, straw-like hair that reached her shoulders. She was the daughter of our villain - the witness to his crimes.

In the second mission, we had guns and infiltrated a Chinese restaurant. I covered their backs, while Josh moved in front, leading us to a meeting room where the daughter could work her "magic". She sat down, whispering, "what word should I use that means 'destroy'?"¹ Behind her were other Chinese men and women speaking amongst each other.

"What about 'eliminate'?"² I suggested.

"Can I talk to you for a sec?" Josh asked. With my head, I motioned to a corner of the room and we both got up to speak privately. When we were alone, a grim look came about his face. "I'm sorry," he said, pointing his gun to his stomach and pulling the trigger.³

I screamed his name, running towards him, confused at his actions but ready to catch him before he hit the ground. Everything slowed down involuntarily as I dove towards him, like a spell of slowness was cast. A bright light enveloped the room and I watched Josh fade out of consciousness and into the bright light.

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¹: words had effects. The enemy had blacklisted the word, "destroy" so it wouldn't do a thing when said.

²: this world was much like in Lexicon by Max Barry. Words did what you said. We needed to blow up a meeting room, and so the daughter was going to write "destroy" on the wall then speak it for the action to happen.

³: ideas of why Josh shot himself raced in my mind has he was going down. He either knew the word wouldn't affect him if he was hurt, or the pain would be too much for him to focus and hear the word.

I had a few dreams, but I only remember three.

In the first, I was visiting his family with Cookie. I knew something was wrong with my memory, and the more I fought it, the more it failed me. I tried to remember names to faces, but I couldn't do it properly. The last person I tried to identify was Blsckberry's and Cherry's mother, who appeared as a tall, leggy blonde woman. When she asked what her name was, I forced my mind to formulate her name. "Aunty Nancy," I said, immedately regretting and knowing it was wrong.

In the second, Blackberry and Raspberry were getting married. It was a garden wedding at night, and unfortunately was not illuminated enough, as the only lights around the fifty-to-a-hundred seated guests were the altar stage and the projected screen. The projection was short video clips from Blackberry's and Raspberry's life, but puzzlingly pieces of Blackberry's humourous clips on YouTube. Astonishingly, there were several Spiderman clips with very crude humour. When I looked at the altar, the couple no longer stood there, and I assumed they went somewhere private to do the ceremony. I turned to the Asian girl I had taken a seat beside and asked her a question.

The third dream was related to the wedding. As I stood from my seat, I was immediately pushed to sit back down. The man sitting behind me on my aisle seat spoke to me and the girl seated in front. This man was skinny, blond and grungy - he stood out from the sea of wedding attire. I didn't understand what the man said, but I knew if I didn't cooperate with his wishes, something terrible would happen. The woman in front of me stood up and took my arm. She had short red hair and looked very much like Scarlet Johanson. We walked briskly to the drug store nearby where she grabbed a few random things off the shelves and cradled them in her other arm.

Turning to me, she asked in an annoyed tone, "well? Aren't you going to take something?"

I spotted a bottle of nailpolish in bright purple. I squeezed it in my palm, debating whether I was suppose to pocket it and run, or pay for it. Following Scarlet to the register counter, she plopped her stash on the counter and I placed my bottle beside them.

We walked back to the garden, making a turn into an abandonned building and into a room. It was tiny with two dividers for toilets in the corner. I walked into one to find an oversized toilet and fresh urine dabbing the seat. The other's toilet was in the dark. Sitting on a love couch in the middle of this tiny room was a dirty blond man, ripped from his arms to his legs and a six pack of defined abs. He was deep into his thoughts, smoking a rolled joint.

The skinny man from earlier came in... And I can't remember the rest except Scarlet's face had been serious and focused the whole time.

I visited the store. Many things changed. My vegan supervisor became a police officer and she collected donations at the entrance. I apologized to her, for not saying goodbye when I had quit the store.


In my second dream, I took some friends around Toronto, spending most of my time with Shortbread and her sister. We took the PATH underground, which was, at this time of day, abandoned. It had a different appearance than usual.

We stopped at a chocolate shop. I wanted to treat my taste buds to something, but I couldn't decide. The sales lady asked what did I feel like having, and I said, "salty, but sweet." She gave me a 1" x 2" rectangle that may've been salted caramel, and after entering the cost, the chip'n'pin machine. Not entirely sure what screen I was on, I entered $100.00 when prompted for an amount. The lady replied, "no, no, no," and it ejected five $100 bills. The last bill was for 100 rupees, which I handed to her, as I didn't know what to do with it.

It was time for my friends to leave, so we surfaced the PATH at Dundas Square. Saying goodbyes, I watched my friends gather in a bus driven by an overweight woman.