Dream of Reality

Tw: heavy themes of unreality, existential dread/horror, heavy mentions of depressing real-world topics

TWEE TWEE TWEE. Anna slams her hand on the alarm multiple times, amidst it’s shrieking, and finally it shuts up. As she sits up and stretches, she thinks about the extremely weird dream she was just having. Maybe she took much Tylenol last night. She shrugs it off.

She checks the TV for the weather. It’s going to lightly rain today, it says. So as she gets ready for her morning walk, she puts on her bright blue raincoat.

Everything goes well for about five minutes. Then it’s like those giant buckets at waterpark playgrounds and suddenly her world is bathed in nothing but rushing water. She makes it under the familiar bridge by the tiny creek in her neighborhood, staring out at the rain. It’s honestly more like the world was suddenly moved under the world’s biggest waterfall.

She sighs, cold and soaked to the bone. Looks like she’s stuck here a while.

Then from the pouring sky water, a six legged pastel purple stumpy little creature that kind of looks like a bunny (if you squint) rushes out, past her, and further under the bridge.

Anna blinks to herself, wondering what the hell she just saw for a solid minute. Then she follows it. She creeps under the tiny bridge, finding in the center of it a small open door that’s much smaller than she is. There’s a light at the end of it. She feels like a kid in an adventure novel, even though she is definitely no longer a kid. But then again, she wasn’t really allowed to be a kid, either.

So she crawls through it, looking for adventure. The mud stains her arms and jacket, but it slowly changes to green-almost-blue grass, as the light gets closer. 

She finally reaches the end and stands up in the strange grass, looking up at a pink sky. Ahead is a navy tree lined with petals like a sunset— pink and orange and red. Under the tree is a garden table, with a figure sitting under it. Anna just glimpses the purple bunny-ish creature running through the grass towards the table, and follows it. Her footsteps crunch on the grass, and the figure perks up.

They turn, and both stop cold at seeing each other.

The person in front of them is human-ish. They have the basic structure, with long arms and legs, standing up right. But they have six arms, seem to be made of clay, and have a floating teapot for a head. The bunny-ish purple creature sits on their shoulder, it’s four ears perking up in interest as it blinks it’s six round black eyes and raises up on its stumpy back legs to see her better, the other two sets in the air.

“Wh-what are you?” The person’s voice asks softly, astonished. Anna doesn’t so much as hear the voice but feel it— it’s not a sound but a deep vibration that she can feel the words in.

“I’m Anna, and I’m a human.” Anna greets. “What are you?”

“I-I’m Dewir. I’m a kpiton.” They answer. Their body language is very nervous, hunching into themselves shyly. “D-do… you want some tea?” They gesture to their set up. There’s only glasses, along with containers for sugar, cream, and tea leaves. The one for storing tea leaves kind of looks like a human head.

Anna nods, and sits with them. “So what’s this world like?” She asks eagerly.

“O-oh!” Dewir perks up and lifts the teapot off their body, pouring a blue-green frothy liquid into a glass. “Here, drink this! I-I’ll show you.”

Anna startles, but shrugs and drinks it. Suddenly she keels over, head pounding, as she suddenly learns all in a single instant about the peaceful utopian society of the kpitons, where there have never been any major wars and all disputes are solved through talking things out and strategy games. All basic rights are free, everyone has living wages, and those who do somehow fall into poverty have tons of resources they can reach out to.

“Are you okay?! I-I tried not to include anything scary!” Dewir cries, concerned.

“I’m fine, it’s just a lot of information at once.” Anna winces.

“S-so can I ask you the same? You’re obviously not from here.” Dewir asks timidly.

“Yeah, sure. I live on Earth, in the United States. I have a factory job, and I’ve been active in the union lately.”

“The union?”

“Yeah! Y’know, keeps employers from taking advantage of you? Makes sure you work normal healthy hours and have healthcare for if you get sick or hurt.” Anna answers like it’s normal, because for her it is.

“Your employers don’t give you that as a default?!” Dewir frets, worried by the very idea. “D-do you also have to pay tons for doctor’s visits or something like that??”

“If you don’t have insurance, yeah. And you have to pay tons for insurance, which doesn’t cover everything anyway.” Anna explains sheepishly.

She feels a wordless vibration that somehow portrays Dewir’s sheer horror.

“You c-can at least go to the school for free, right?” Dewir begs.

Anna is guiltily silent.

“Oh, this is terrible. M-maybe you should just stay here, where things are better. There’s a spare bed in my house, so you can w-with me until you can get on your feet!” Dewir offers.

“Well… maybe I’ll stay at least for a few days, to see how everything is.” Anna decides.

The rest of the day is a blur of Dewir taking Anna home and helping her get settled in. They have dinner, and are both weirded out by the way the other eats, but it doesn’t stop them from liking each other well enough to stay with them.

Anna gets settled into bed, after a short moment where she has to explain to Dewir that her head does not detach and the pillow goes on the bed rather than the night table. Staring out the window at the deep purple sky, Anna slowly drifts off to sleep.

—

TWEE TWEE TWEE. Anna slams her hand on the alarm multiple times, amidst it’s shrieking, and finally it shuts up. As she sits up and stretches, she thinks about the extremely weird dream she was just having. Maybe she took much Tylenol last night. She shrugs it off.

She checks the TV for the weather. It’s going to lightly rain today, it says. So as she gets ready for her morning walk, she puts on her bright blue raincoat.

Everything goes well for about five minutes. Then it’s like those giant buckets at waterpark playgrounds and suddenly her world is bathed in nothing but rushing water. She makes it under the familiar bridge by the tiny creek in her neighborhood, staring out at the rain. It’s honestly more like the world was suddenly moved under the world’s biggest waterfall.

She sighs, cold and soaked to the bone. Looks like she’s stuck here a while.

Then from the pouring sky water, a six legged pastel purple stumpy little creature that kind of looks like a bunny (if you squint) rushes out, past her, and further under the bridge.

Anna blinks. She saw that in her dreams. She follows.

There’s the door again.

She crawls through, and there’s Dewir.

“This is a really weird dream.” Dewir laughs.

“Wait, how do you know it’s a dream? I thought people in the dream world weren’t aware they’re not real.” Anna asks.

Dewir startles. “N-no… I’m real. I’m the one that’s dreaming. You’re the dream.” They say it like it’s obvious.

The air grows cold. Anna shakes her head. “No, you’re the one that’s a dream. Your world is too good to be true.”

“No, your world is too bad to be true! It’s an utter nightmare! Things would n-never get that bad! It’s like something out of a cartoon!” Dewir tells her confidently.

“Your head looks like a teapot, and teapots are items made by humans for drinking tea! You’re the one who’s not real!” Anna claims.

“Well *your* head looks like a sjdit, and those were made by kpitons for storing tea!” Dewir shoots back.

“Your name is an anagram for weird, which means gsgj or yyti!”

“Your name is an anagram for Nnaa, which means dreamlike! How do you know what gdgj or yyti means anyway if you’re from another world?! How do you know any of these words?!” Dewir yells.

Anna holds up a finger and opens up her mouth, but can’t find an answer to that one. Oh god, wait— no, this can’t be it. “We’re speaking in English right now!”

“No we’re not, we’re speaking in Geraeyalr!” Dewir huffs, crossing their arms, which clink like porcelain when slammed together.

Anna’s head is starting to spin as she begins to question everything, incredibly confused by this whole conversation. Wait if she’s confused, is that proof? Her whole life, everything in it, all the history in the world— is it not real? Is it all just a dream? 

It can’t be— but she can’t remember anything from her life except that her name is Anna and she was forced to grow up way too soon as a kid, and that’s why she went through the door under the bridge. That’s barely anything. That’s a name and a basic motivation. Is she really a real person if that’s all she can remember? Is she really just a made up character in someone else’s fucked up dream?! Is everything she remembers from her world fake? Is it all nothing but a dream?! All the political strife, all the wars, the horrible society that constantly punishes it’s majority population for being alive— is it just the nightmare alternate world of a reality where there is no strife? It sounds like it would be. Half the stuff she remembers from her world sounds like a dystopian novel.

Paying hundreds of dollars for an ambulance where the paramedics don’t even do their jobs, thousands of dollars for hospital visits that should be covered by insurance but aren’t— the entire concept of insurance, actually— higher education putting you in debt but degrees still not getting you jobs unless you do jobs with no pay for experience but you still have to pay your debt at the same time?! It doesn’t sound real. The planet slowly melting and the government denying it. People in rich countries starving to death because there’s barely any support for impoverished communities. Homeless people being assaulted on the street for being homeless. It sounds so fake, like the plot of a game set right before the apocalypse.

It sounds like something that would be made up in the head (teapot?) of an anxious person from a peaceful reality.

Anna’s stomach rolls, and she stands up, world spinning around her like she’s on fair ride— are fair rides made up too?

She vomits on the blue-green grass and passes out.

—

TWEE TWEE TWEE. Anna slams her hand on the alarm multiple times, amidst it’s shrieking, and finally it shuts up. As she sits up and stretches, she thinks about the extremely weird dream she was just having. Maybe she took much Tylenol last night. She shrugs it off.

She checks the TV for the weather. It’s going to lightly rain today, it says. So as she gets ready for her morning walk, she puts on her bright blue raincoat.

Everything goes well for about five minutes. Then it’s like those giant buckets at waterpark playgrounds and suddenly her world is bathed in nothing but rushing water. She makes it under the familiar bridge by the tiny creek in her neighborhood, staring out at the rain. It’s honestly more like the world suddenly was moved under the world’s biggest waterfall.

She sighs, cold and soaked to the bone. Looks like she’s stuck here a while.

Then from the pouring sky water, a six legged pastel purple stumpy little creature that kind of looks like a bunny (if you squint) rushes out, past her, and further under the bridge.