“am I in that awkward unproductive transitional phase I’m going to laugh about in a few years or is this how I’m gonna be for the rest of my life” : a constant concern
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here that wasn’t a dream. And I’ve been lagging behind on those as well. After something becomes worked into a routine, I become apprehensive about returning to a more casual manner of doing things. But my time is finally freeing up (now that I’m graduated and my military service is ending mid-August) so I may start using this site again (just maybe).
May 19
We were walking by the water as the guide explained that the reservoir behind the dam was also lined with concrete. This resulted in frequent flooding of the small stands around the water.
I was walking across a rope plank bridge with a small stack of cards in my hands. I was responsible for carrying these cards for my whole squad of ten. The water of the reservoir was as high as the bridge itself and the moment I looked down, I accidentally dropped the stack of cards. It descended way too quickly and way too deep for any chance of recovering them.
~~
I was checking an old friend’s Tumblr on my phone only for it to disappear after scrolling through a few posts. I could still access some cached pages by going back on the browser but I wasn’t able to load any new pages. I tried to see if they had changed their blog by referencing their old posts.
May 18
I was waiting to board a flight home from Michigan. We wanted to get some food before the flight and found out we would get a discount if everyone chipped in 100 NTD. we were among the last people still in the airport terminal. A group of people were running outside on the runway.
The plane was about to land as we approached our destination and I needed to use the restroom.However there was no restroom on the plane, everyone did their business on the seats of the last row. I hesitantly did the same.
Once I had arrived, I checked the arrivals table and saw that my aunt’s flight wouldn’t land for another 10 hours. I saw my parents waiting for me and I quickly ran over to hug them. However, I had dropped my bags somewhere near the boarding gate so we walked back towards the plane to pick them up together. I overheard the airport staff talking about me and the fact that we were walking against the flow of people. My dad told me to “just go” and ignore their comments.
~~
I was taking a shower on top of a mattress with a mosquito net outdoors. There were three books on the mattress, all relating to dragons. The shower head would occasionally spray water onto the other people still sleeping on the neighboring mattresses. I apologized every time.
May 16
We were to run a “big lap” and a “small lap” within the airport. I wasn’t really sure what was meant by that and at one point I wasn’t even sure if I was going in the right direction. Another runner reassured me that I was running the right way when I asked so I continued onward. One part of the track went through a spiral staircase - I accidentally went around twice before getting out of the stairwell. At a certain point, everyone around me started running on all fours. They indicated that it took less effort to do so, so I hunched forwards and did that same.
I stopped to rest at a store with red walls and shelves. As I was browsing the merchandise, I heard the sound of bagpipes approaching from the entrance. I turned around to see a man holding a portable record player.
~~
I was in an art class and today’s assignment was to transfer our previous work onto a round canvas. Our teacher showed us various methods for keeping the original piece intact. She pointed to an oil painted depicting a purple forest in the middle of the night. “Epoxy is nice”, she commented.
Next, we were to fold a cube out of paper to hold our valuables. I had somehow managed to make the container too big - it was a couple of meters long on each side. Finally, we were assigned to design a sign or logo to display next to our artwork for the exhibition.
May 10
I was thinking about the long bus ride to school while I was preparing lunch for the next day late at night. Clowns were banging at the window when the fire alarm started ringing. The clowns broke in to tell us that hats must only be set on the heads of the hedge animals - which happened to be on fire. They tossed the hats onto the garden decorations which swiftly extinguished the flames. One of the clowns excitedly pointed at a bush in the shape of an alpaca and said “See! Lasagna does work!”
A friend sitting across from me hadn’t eaten all night and I asked her what was wrong. She started talking about her frustrations with an unreliable friend who never properly returned things. She mentioned how one time she needed her keys to be delivered back to her by mail because her friend failed to do so in person. She appeared increasingly distraught as she continued ranting and I tried my best to be supportive. She insisted that she was fine.
May 7
The latest tweet on her Twitter feed began with “Dear @Clark…” and was projected onto a large wall. I felt a wave of embarrassment wash over me. A tweet had been mistakenly directed at me despite the fact that we hadn’t talked in years. I was deeply ashamed of this fact.
~~
It was my uncle’s birthday and I was in charge of bringing cake. I walked into the bakery just as it was about to close and looked over their selection of cakes on display. I picked out two ice cream cakes, one vanilla flavored and another fudge, which was labeled “Fireworks”. I asked the person at the counter to write “Happy Birthday” on the fudge cake and decided at the last moment to buy another cake for myself.
I took the shortcut home this time, which went through an abandoned metro station that ran under the tennis courts. Since this was technically trespassing, we also needed to pay a 100 RMB bribe. I expressed my anxieties over getting caught with the people walking next to me. “It’s fine”, they said, “thousands of people pass through here everyday and hundreds of thousands of goods are transported. They won’t remember us.”
The underground tunnel resurfaced in the middle of a junkyard of abandoned goods. Packages were still being delivered to the site via drones with balloons attached to them.
~~
I carried my niece on my shoulders down the stairs of a dried up riverbank. “I can see the end of the world!” she said excitedly. When we got to the bottom, I took out a notebook from my pocket and flipped through the pages.
“Another dream journal?” a voice said.
I looked up and saw a woman with an unamused expression.
“That’s not very safe, you know”, she continued, “the world is ending.”
May 6
I was watching a television series that was about life on different planets. The current episode was about a tropical island planet. It was an ocean world with a single tropical island that was populated by a village of people. There were scenes of children surfing by the spotless beaches while the narrator explained the dramatic tide changes throughout the day.
Meanwhile, I was also upgrading an old computer. The first component to change was the graphics card, as the installed one was so old that it started lagging on splash screens. A friend and I were talking about how, at the time, the old graphics card cost 200 HKD (this was, supposedly, a lot).
We also happened to be moving some things around my room, all while music was playing from a YouTube playlist. Another friend brought a shoe box to my attention, labeled: Box of Review. When they opened it up to look inside, I commented, “Hey, that’s mine.” I had completely forgotten about the box prior to this moment. Inside the box was a signed banknote and a bag of coins from a foreign country. There was also a stack of notecards with messages from former classmates. Among the other miscellaneous memorabilia from this school trip was a Ziploc bag with two, still yellow, bananas. We were amazed by how fresh they looked.
“No oxygen goes a long way”, someone said.
“Want to try it?” I asked while picking up and holding the bag in their direction.
“Sure”, they said.
However, I had changed my mind and suggested to “wait another 10 years.”
May 2
We were in the cafeteria when a giant bird crashed into the hall through the skylight. The human-sized raven hopped towards me and gripped the fingers on my right hand with its beak. I struggled and tried to run away but every time I broke free, the bird would continue following me. I finally turned around and asked what it wanted. It spoke “ You have an uncanny ability for detecting death.” It dropped what seemed to be an elementary school worksheet as it spoke. It was dated 2005, and it had the last name of my third grade teacher in the upper right corner. I turned to my friends and asked if anyone might happen to know who, or what, “Death” is. No one had a clue. I turned around and asked the Raven where it came from. “Kenya”, they said.
Our third grade teacher came towards us on a moving walkway - which we took as a sign to ask questions. “XXX, did we ever talk about death?” We were quickly shot down, “No.” and he continued moving past us, carried by the walkway beneath him. Someone suddenly recalled that the worksheet itself had a reference to death. We turned to the last person who had it. He apologized for ripping it up when we thought it was a dead end.
We were back to square one - and it wasn’t helping that someone in the group was trying to look as ominous as possible, as they found the notion of being dubbed “Death” appealing. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not working” I told him.