As with most dreams, my subconscious spared me the preamble and dropped me into the story mid-plot. I am in a 1-hour photo store examining a roll of film. I have no fingernails - I rarely do in dreams, though I doubt it means much, besides revealing an oversight of whoever was charged with the job of programming my subconscious. So I am reading the yellow label on the roll of film, and it's ultrafluorescent in the store so I'm squinting so my eyelashes filter out the infertile white glare, and so far this is a pretty basic situation as far as my dreams go. Surreal little bits and pieces of reality, no dialogue, no real story-line, and then I wake up and it's eight to ten hours later.
But squinting there against the glow, I'm suddenly aware of a hand weighing heavy on my right shoulder.
"I'm ready to go," says the voice that I already know to be Alex's (whose name has been changed because it's not too hard to find this thing), because in dreams you know the characters without actually looking up and identifying them. I am the one creating this entire situation, after all.
For whatever reason, my response is a low "okay," and I turn to follow him out of the store.
Frames change and we're in Alex's (this was a poor choice of a name. Oh well) kitchen, another snippet of reality with a psychedelic undertone. He is frying eggs, and the steam from the frying pan is slowly filling the room. The lights are opalescent from beneath the steam, and I'm staring at the eggs with the same intensity I exhibited in the photo store.
"Fuck off, I'm trying to do something nice" comes Alex's voice again, and once again I am in the moment, inexplicably aware of the plot points I've missed.
"Just don't fucking bother. I didn't ask for anything." Comes my meek little snarl, and part of me is watching this through my own eyes, but isn't allowed access to the memories or the emotions behind any of it. I am fighting with Alex while the room becomes more and more fogged with steam. I am there, but I'm not there. I am Being John Malkovich personified.
The arguing continues and escalades. The eggs burn and Alex scrapes them off into the sink. I start to cry and he tells me to cut it out. He softens a bit and kisses my forehead, and the steam drains from the room. And I, the spectator to my own imagined life, I suddenly understand the premise: We are a dysfunctional couple.
The small part of me conscious enough to be logical is already trying to analyze the dream. Why Alex, and what is this supposed to represent? When was the last time anyone comforted me by kissing my forehead, and when did such an innocent gesture become synonymous with romantic tragedy?
The scene changes again. I'm in Alex's hallway, much more narrow in my dream than it is in reality, sitting against his bedroom door with Chelsea beside me, telling me to just go in and sleep. I mutter a weak little "I don't know..." and she raises her voice to properly get the advice from my ears to my brain.
"Don't fight with him. Just don't do it. You guys care about each other. Just go sleep beside him."
And I do.
I'm curled up on my side in a bed that never really existed with a boy I've never had romantic interest in beside me, wrapping an arm around me and telling me how badly he wants this to work. That small analytical portion of my brain is going apeshit. I'm pleasant but distant, polite but cold. And for whatever reason, as a spectator, I'm more aware of his hurting at this point than any of my own character's emotions.
More quick scene changes. I tell him I might be pregnant and he suggests we get married and cry so loud for so long that he abandons all efforts to console me and phones up Chelsea to do the magic she can do so well. I bring him home for Christmas at my aunt's and punch him in the balls under the table when I feel him place his hand on my thigh. We are invited to Steph and Chelsea's wedding and I drive home without him after the ceremony. We get drunk and he tries to have sex with me on his floor with our clothes on and I push him away and start to cry again.
One person can have up to seven or eight dreams per night, and seven of mine (assuming these count as individual dreams) are spent showing myself what a terrible girlfriend I have made, and will continue to make. It didn't seem out-of-character at all. I'm hard on the people I get close with. Alex, this amazingly loyal boyfriend version of a friend I've only had for a year or so now, sticks through every imaginary scenario, no matter how much I weigh down on him, and when he can't do it alone, it's then Chelsea's job to manage me. I would qualify the entire string of dreams as one long nightmare. Every time I fell asleep I would see myself age the people closest to me, unable for whatever reason to leave me to fend for myself.
I woke up to my mum's voice asking my sisters if they knew when I'd gotten back last night and if they thought I'd be up soon. I answered a text and managed to drift away for one last dream, wherein I sit on the bathroom floor while Alex has a shower, and I stare at the bath mat like it's a roll of film or a fried egg, and he asks me a serious of questions and I supply curt responses, and he shuts the water off and the steam just fades away and he gets out and asks me if I've noticed that he's never seen me naked.
A new year starts now. I've already got my resolution.
