stop me if you've heard this one (a collection of quarantine dreams)

by anna michnowicz

01. If you had told me three months ago that I would dream of Grand Central Station, I would have laughed in your face. Rush hour has cemented itself as pale granite with aquamarine, a ceiling of constellations behind my eyelids. The train takes us out of the city and into the desert, my clammy hand in the too-certain hand of my best friend. I would not be making this journey without her. Mistake number one: do not drag your friends into heinous dream adventures. They are there to make you afraid for them. Mistake number two: do not cling to the tracks, no matter how fast the train is moving. We see a mirage of a seaside attraction, Coney Island deposited into the Sahara. The peeling pale blue of the walls reminds me of home. Mistake number three: finding aquariums in the desert is not magical. Do not seek water if you cannot see its source.

02. There is a man I am going to marry, and he is perfect. My friends and family wrap me in lace until I can no longer breathe. They tell me how kind he is, how excited they are for me, here, have a cookie, it’s your wedding day. They tell me how happy they are that this man has purchased a million-dollar home in my name. I run into the endless night until I find an outdoor movie. Lay my head in the lap of a woman who is not my mother but covers me in a blanket and tells me it’s okay. She lets me cry through the last twenty minutes of Casablanca. I whisper that I cannot marry a man I don’t know. Not-Mother leans over and says that’s alright too.

03. There is a demon grinning at me from just beyond the window, and the demon looks like George Clooney. Maybe I have learned to expect terror disguised as beauty. I have to escape this classroom, which becomes a grocery store, my every move emphasized by the crackling of a plastic bag on my arm. The outside smells of sulfur. My getaway car is a mintgreen Cadillac 1970 DeVille Convertible, a vehicle I have never seen in reality. Someone is shouting for me to go, go, go, and I floor the gas. I blaze through a town of vague familiarity, and George laughs. He runs through my subconscious like he belongs, chasing me, and the green hillsides erupt with fire. Flames lick the pavement, and I wake up with smoke in my lungs.