dreams, batch 1

1. I was in a large, room-sized bathtub eating edible green army-men. The bathtub had clean white tile, pale blue walls cast in shadow, and a window looking out onto a scraggly lawn that extended into desert. I was stealing this somehow. I broke in and was taking this from someone. I snuck out of the house at this point but, somehow, I took it with me, dragging part of the structure behind me on the way to a train station. I saw sunflowers, red roses, a white picket fence, and Betty Draper with her shotgun and cigarette. She was wearing a yellow nightgown, not the smock like in the show. I was moving fast through this place but in what vehicle I’m no longer sure. An old woman yelled at me. I didn’t get on the train but was somehow left between the house and the platform, knowing that the train is leaving without me. The last image I have is of the asphalt, and the gutter.

- S.R.D.

2. It’s unclear whether I’m the protagonist of a video game or controlling one. Either way, I am an assassin who really needs to pee. It’s like the third stage of the map, that’s the whole quest. Finding somewhere to pee. Except I’m undercover as a dockworker, and each bathroom in the warehouse is siloed off for specifically numbered employees, so every time I go in, someone gets suspicious of me and I die. Every time I try to find some nook to go number one in peace, some manager spots me and I die. I can’t even skip the peeing part, even though I’ve already picked up my killing materials. I end up having to scale the barbed fence surrounding the port, and I go to a public bathroom with an Asian bathhouse vibe. Here, I first use a magical shaving cream that makes my moustache disappear. Then, I finally seek my liberation. But I can’t even do that in peace, because they don’t have normal urinals here, you have to pee in this circular divot on the floor, and you have to stand in the very middle where there’s a protrusion, and aim outwards, except I need to go so bad it’s spraying way too far, and I’m spinning around in circles trying to restrict my flow, everyone’s looking at me, and I’m losing so many points in the video game because of this, they hate how I’m spraying, I lose so many points I fail the mission again and again.

- B.R.G.

3. Voices like marbles shaken in a bowl. Wet glass rustling. Familial, yes, there is a sniff of it. Out the recess sharply. Ahead, the window, beyond, what, nothing, not nothing, the light. Familial, yes, there is a sniff of it. Back from window back to window. Cavernous, trite, large, trite, far room. Air thick with the smell of rubber. Dredge yourself now. Up mister my man and up and up. Positioned floorwards, back to window, feet lolled, rot, feet limp. Wet glass rustling. Cock of the head there, magpie, hinge-a-ways, open. Up. There the sound, familial, yes there is a sniff of it, peering over. To reach, how, I may know. Ladder ahead of me, black ladder, nothing more, no, not true, the wall, white wall, black ladder, could I do it, I may. Oh but he doesn’t half go on. Leftwards. An enclosed staircase, coiled, frozen black flypaper staircase, inside I would not see them they would not see me. And to go is perhaps beyond me, me knowing nothing more than back to window, them above, wet glass rustling. Stay, I might. And the minutes go by, fast minutes, water minutes, splash and splatter and froth minutes against the backwards window and floorwards feet and spritz minutes against the temple, the head that is, temple connotational, I will be clear. Enough, certainly. And their chatter. Whisper rustle hush. To what end, I may know. To reach them, could I go, I could go, the ladder, the stairs. And for what purpose. Am as I am. But here, new, squint, yes, what, yes, new, new figure, new shape, new voice, like television in another room, blue voice, blue shape, I know yes I know.

Sportacus.

And to open the great mouth, not great, small, always so, must be, couldn’t be other, this is clear to me. Sugarglass voice. Frozen crackling hoary voice. To be crass I will not. Frozen crackling frosted voice in the cold light in the wet minutes. Breaks like tinfoil. Stay! Tendons around the calf stand rigid, attention, throb, hurtle forwards. The ladder no the staircase. Clamber inside the dark, cannot see out they cannot see he cannot see. Sportacus. Breath is small fish hooks, firm on throat, cold breath on hot lung, minutes splatter and snap and slap against me. Light ahead, must be there, emerge, balcony, looking down over what, ladder, window frontwards, floor feetwards, Sportacus, where, not here, where, look over. Below where once I was they are. Voice like television in another room. I am coming Sportacus I am coming. Don’t leave me, Sportacus. Run to the ladder, hands tight to sides, easier to slide, slideways childways against the ladderways with knuckles hot hot hot. Rung down to Sportacus. Meet ground hard jarringly, set buzzing like, like. Tip the old hat there mister my man and turn around back wallways front windowways head headways eyes myways. The blue devil bedeviled. Beedevil the fly devil. Gone. Sportacus, my Sportacus. Where. Above, the voices. Like wet glass. Wet minutes wet glass smell of wet rubber, strong smell of wet rubber, the air is thick with, the air is wet rubber. Ships in the. How to. The staircase. This time stay my Sportacus must stay must. Get the voice out like bricks on sheetmetal. Crash bang wallop. Stay! Into the stairs and up and up I cannot see them I cannot be seen and the minutes wash by and Sportacus my Sportacus I am coming to you I am coming. And their voices fall away like wet sod from the spade, rot, nothing, their voices fall away like nothing from nothing, they fall like nothing, me running up stairways in the dark. The light outside the Sportacus outside. And so on.

- D.E.S.

4. My roommate has baked an absurd and upsetting quantity of bread, somewhere between fifty and a hundred loaves. I don’t know how she’s done it but it’s far too much bread for the two of us to eat.

She keeps the loaves in the freezer, which has a tinted door like a microwave. Our floor is sandy with yeast granules. Whenever anyone comes over, I say Look at all the fucking bread in our freezer. I don’t know what Aileen’s going to do about it. They look, politely, through the tinted door. It’s just a few loaves, they say. Five people say this to me before I start wondering if everyone is blind. 

When I look through the tinted door, I realize the problem. Our freezer is much, much deeper than it appears, and only the front is lit. Through the door, you can make out just a few loaves, but if you open the door and shout into the dark back half that you want some bread, the lights will come on and reveal three teenage boys sitting cross legged, all wearing small paper crowns, surrounded by loaves. None of them are dressed for the cold of the freezer. “Sure,” one will say, and toss you a loaf. Then the lights will dim again and they’ll go back to talking to each other.

- I.L.Y.