Strange Dream

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I just needed to write this down before I forgot it,
I was shopping in a large mall, though itself was rather strange as everything was in shades of white, with the exception of signage and people. I guess it was present day as I was with my Aunt Evelyn who I think is 80 this year, why her I do not know as she isn't accepting of me, and wouldn't want to be seen within 10 feet of me (of course that would explain why I kept losing her). Excuse me I digress. I was talking on a cell phone ( I don't have one) to someone I haven't seen in 50+ years trying to find my way around and needed to go to a lower level, but there was an extremely long line or queue depending where you are from, for the only escalator down. Opting to use the stairs, I soon found myself on the lower level. Still in shades of white, I was still talking on the phone describing what I was seeing. I seemed to feel something was off as I needed to ask what year it was. It turned out it was the year 4444 and I was in New York City (I have never been there). I came to this conclusion as the mall windows looked out over the Statue of Liberty which was up to it's neck in water. The mall seemed to be built over New York Harbor the people became rather tall, slender and androgynous, though clothing seemed to differentiate gender. I stopped a young woman, based on she was wearing a black and white skirted suit with a name badge (though I couldn't see her name) to ask about stores for the transgendered. Which surprised her telling me she usually only was stopped to be asked what her outfit was made from. She started to lead me to the transformation store, when she was stopped and asked what her outfit was made from, it apparently was made from "unwrinkable silk". That is when I woke up. I rarely have such vivid dreams they are usually much simpler and felt I needed to write it down. Thanks for putting up with my rambling. Well I guess I better get back to bed.

Comments

4444

laika's picture

Sounds like this would make a pretty good story after paring away some of the earlier elements that don't fit the lost-in-the-future theme. I could see her getting to the transformation store, selecting a transformation package, but when the pretty young androgynous salesperson asks her to hold her wrist out and scan it she doesn't have a credit chip. They immediately conclude, "Oh, you're an extemporal."

"A what?"

"People from the past. They keep showing up, nobody knows why. You need to register, but you're certainly welcome to come back for a transformation after you're classified."

She gamely proceeds to the Information kiosk she was directed to by the clerk but someone who overheard intercepts her. A beautiful (everyone's beautiful here, hard to believe some are 500 years old...) but somehow dodgy-acting character who warns her, "You do NOT want to register. Come with me."

And leads her through a maze of service corridors and ducts to a warren of outcasts, all apparently squatting in a forgotten part of the mall. They've learned to live off the radar, with their own bootleg fake ID chips, and even know people who can perform the same services as the transformation store; though it's all makeshift and definitely not as clean and white as where the acceptable people live, or-

Or maybe not; I think I'm just spinning tired dystopian cliches here.
You wouldn't want to lose the dreamlike feel of such a story by
having it make too much sense or be as predictable as this.
Maybe more like Kafka's beautiful ethereal surrealist novel
AMERIKA- which was a surprisingly upbeat work
from this author whose name is synonymous
with the ultimate in bad trips.

But anyway GREAT dream! Sounds like one of Dorothy's,
who has this kind of amazing cinematic dreams too...
~hugs, Veronica

Anxiety Dream?

Daphne Xu's picture

A dream of confusion and -- mayhem isn't the right word, but something of the sort. You're lost, and you're only getting loster and loster.

-- Daphne Xu