Dream: Alice
Slept 2/26, Recorded 2/27
Her name was Alice. I only know this because when I called her Ashley one time, she let out a mixed gasp that was simultaneously sad, surprised, and slightly angered. She was perfect in my eyes. Admittedly, she was not a girl that everyone would agree is the most beautiful girl in the world, but it simply did not matter to me. She was perfect. She had the same sense of humor as I did, liked the same things as I did, and was good to me. Did I mention she was perfect? I enjoyed her so much that I simply did not want it to end. So imagine my surprise; and genuine; disappointment; when I woke up. She was, for all intents and purposes, the girl of my dreams. ;)
I’ll start from where I can remember.
My friend Andy and I were walking around a place with buildings that were old looking which were mostly built with brick accompanied by brick and cement floors. The trees looked as if they were overgrown roots next to these buildings. The sky was clear as well with the sun radiantly shining, it was a beautiful day. Andy and I come across a long staircase descending to what looked like a dense forest. Despite this clear vantage point, I still did not know where I was, I assumed it was a college. My friend Andy and I descend a few steps when Andy decides to go back up for whatever reason. He let out a deafening scream that somehow was not feminine-sounding. I turn around to see what he was screaming about. I knew right away what he was screaming about. I saw a web that was about my size covering the doorway to the stairs with an oversize crustacean/spider hybrid looking creature that was the size of a backpack crawling on the edge of the web. It actually looked like a giant, scary looking shrimp. I back up in horror down the stairs when I hit a protruding tree branch. I turn around to see another one of these creatures crawling along the branch. Despite this terrifying picture, I couldn’t help but notice that Andy was on the other side of the web somehow. Right before I know it, I was now on the other side of the web and I remember wanting to complain to the student council right away. This is when I knew this was a college. I walk into the student council room and I notice a dark, empty room illuminated only by the projector that was in the room, which only seemed to project a white screen. A girl walks out of the other door; which looked too much like a closet; that was in the room. Although it was dark, I could make out that she was about 5’2, a mixture of what seemed to be Asian and Mexican with an emphasis on Asian. Her dark brown hair was at a modest length; not long nor short; and was worn down. She looked as if she did not style her hair at all and just simply combed it. Despite this, her hair seemed flowy. She was wearing a navy blue (or white), classic t-shirt that was tucked into her light blue jeans and was rolled up at the sleeves. To complete the outfit, she was wearing black old skool vans. Her style was deceptively simple. I liked it. We’ll call her Vans Girl for now. I frantically tell her about the large crustacean creatures that are by the long staircase with actual fear in my voice. While I’m yelling, she calmly tells me with a pleasant, laid back voice that the crustaceans were just props to scare people and that she put them there. This made my heart drop. All at once, I was relieved, saddened, angered, and most of all, for whatever reason, intrigued.
About 30 unaccounted minutes later, Vans Girl tells me to tag along with her on some errands. At this point, I absolutely did not know what for, I just played along and went with her. She grabbed a gorilla mask in the closet and turned off the projector in the room where we were in. I follow her outside of the room and we walk for about 5 minutes before we reached our destination. Despite not knowing her, I remember that we were not walking in silence. She actually did all the talking for the whole duration of the 5 minutes that we were walking. I was just politely listening. Strangely, I do not remember what she talked about all. All I remember is that I was enticed by her persona. I was more curious if anything. We walked into a building and made our way to the first door to the right. She said ‘watch this’ as she put the gorilla mask on her head and slowly propped the door open to check if the coast was clear. Once she was certain, she made her move. She opened the door suddenly and scared the rest of the student council, who seemed to be in a meeting in a dark room, much like the projector room. I took a quick glimpse at the student council members’ reactions, which ranged from genuinely surprised, to curious shift of the gaze, all the way to blatant disregard, almost as if she has done this before. After the stunt that Vans Girl pulled, she takes my hand and runs away. She probably didn’t need to take my hand because I would have ran anyway. Nevertheless, it felt nice. We ran all the way to what looked like a theme park and/or carnival. There were colored tents that had games, food, rides, and even a big ferris wheel in the distance. We were still running through the carnival with her in the lead, still holding on to my hand. This goes on until I notice the band playing a familiar song. The band was rather large and had pretty much every single brass instrument as well as several string instruments and, strangely, only one guy playing drums on a huge drum set. I look toward the band and subtitles pop into the bottom part of my vision which read [******* by Stevie Wonder starts playing]. I don’t remember exactly which Stevie Wonder song it was, all I know is that it was fast. I start vibing to the song and nodding my head to the beat when I notice Vans Girl is snapchatting the band playing and she pans over to me. I smile at her and she smiles back. I’m having the time of my life. I then look around me and I notice that my friends Brian (Gazo) and Jeffrey (Galang) are with me, also dancing to the music. Everyone around me is dancing to the music, just having a good time, together. This along with the colors of the carnival in the background made the whole experience that much more euphoric.
After the song was over, the band, along with the whole carnival, started packing up. A little while later, the whole area where the carnival used to be was now empty. Some time in the evening, I realized that I completely forgot to ask Vans Girl what her name was. She said her name is Alice. I don’t remember her telling me this, I just got this information along the way I suppose. What remained in front of us was a large reflecting pool surrounded by some trees. Despite this, it was still in the middle of a city. It was around midnight, so Jeffrey, Brian, Alice, and I were some of the only people in the streets. The streetlights were illuminated by gas lamps and reflected off the water of the reflecting pool nicely. I remember congregating right by the water of the reflecting pool with my friends and Alice, talking about whatever was around us. I remember Alice hugging me in a warm embrace. I have found that being hugged by a girl is one of the nicest feelings ever, dream world or otherwise. I get out of her embrace for a second to look for something that I saw underneath a rock by the water with Jeffrey. I then turn around to see her holding Brian the same way. I begin to question myself. ‘This always happens to me,’ I say. ‘Am I not good enough?’ I ask myself. ‘Will I ever find love?’ All these rhetorical questions, never an answer. One of the reasons life is hard to live is because of all the unanswered questions. However, life itself is an unanswered question. So where do we go from there? I digress. What just happened was undone by the rest of the evening. We never left each other’s side for the remainder of our time together. Alice and I found ourselves in a store that looked like a Circuit City and Costco hybrid. It was like a Best Buy, but the size of a Costco and also sold groceries. The floors were hardwood as well. We didn’t even have to hold hands or embrace each other. Her presence was enough for me, and my presence was enough for her. I remember smiling practically the whole time I was with her in the store because of how funny she was. I then notice that she wasn’t wearing the outfit from when I first met her. Instead, she was wearing a short, white, floral sundress and her hair was worn in a bun. She was absolutely beautiful. I remember walking around the whole store and simply looking at stuff and talking about it. She saw a cleaning product and made a joke about it. I saw a facial cleansing product and made a commentary about it. After walking through the whole store doing this, I realized that we missed one crucial section. The movies. I told her this and her eyes widened in agreement. Oh yeahhhh the moviesss! She said in her cute manner. She may or may not have had some food in her mouth at the time. Despite this, I don’t remember going to the movies section and we the next thing I remember was us paying at the cash register. This was about the time I accidentally called her Ashley. She gasped but smiled again right after I corrected myself. She had a lovely smile. Our cashier; an elderly lady with short grey hair who was wearing a baby blue short sleeve shirt; was the sweetest thing and was very nice to us. We’ll call her Gladys to make things easier. I then found out that the reason was because Alice worked at this store. Alice and Gladys were talking to each other with polite smiles that didn’t seem fake at all and next thing I know, Gladys is talking to me saying good things about Alice. It made me more attracted to her to hear these things from Gladys. I remember looking at her intently, she was the only person in the whole store as far as I knew. She was perfect.
And then I woke up.
Part of me wanted to, needed to, get up for school, while a part of me wanted to go back to sleep and see if I could return to Alice. I switched my alarm last night from ‘The Right Time’ by Tuxedo to ‘F.Y.R.A.’ by Trash Talk. F.Y.R.A. played three times before I stopped it and went back to sleep.
I returned to dreamland, but it wasn’t with Alice.
