24 Sep 2025
Dream
Once upon a dream, Dominique finds himself reliving his high school years. He's in the band room and it's around Christmas time. He feels lonely, alienated and he is sent out to go Christmas holiday shopping with a group of classmates. The intention is to buy gifts as a sort of white elephant or a secret Santa for the class. However, Domonique is not having his hopes high because last year he received no presents and expects nothing to change this year. However, he does go along with the motions, they go to the mall, they peruse around a bit, Domonique finds himself helping everybody else choose a gift, and before he can make his selection, the store is closing, and everyone's trying to do last minute shopping, make last minute deals. He is scrambling and it appears that when he goes out of the mall, the person who he's driven with is choosing not to give him a ride back. And he's asking other classmates whether there were a group of girls in the car and he asks, can I get a lift back to you? And the answer was a rudely answered, no. Domonique finds himself living two iterations of this dream. Another version, he is in the mall and he finds someone familiar from his middle school days. He believes his name was Isaac and Isaac was cool because he thought differently, like Domonique. But Isaac was preoccupied with shopping and found his people. Now in the other iteration of the dream when it was time to come to a close, Domonique still had not found a present for anybody and doubted anyone got a present for him. So he goes to the garage after trying to make a last minute deal, but realizing that the people who are working at the stores just want to go home and get back to their families. So he sees one of the clerks deny someone else and does not want to push his luck, for he knows it is his fault that he did not use his time wisely. Domonique is more concerned with trying to get to the car, because he knows that the garage locks at 12 midnight, and if he does not find the garage, get in the car and drive out by then, he will be stuck there until the morning. He does not remember which level of the garage he is parked on and scrambles to find it. I don't think he does. But then the scene shifts.
Domonique now finds himself playing a video game. It's kind of like a multiplayer adventure game. I remember it being very 2D though. Similar to how you would experience old school Mario games but with better graphics. He was playing a female character, and the other players who he is Gaming with may or may not have been the same group of people he was shopping for presents with. They did not feel familiar to him. He remembers his character not being as leveled up as the rest of the party. She seemed to lag behind the other characters and her powers were not yet strong. And so he tried to move her to collect all of the bonus points in the game. That way he could play catch up. But secretly he knew that once he did, she would be the most powerful of them all. For she was the only female character in the party. The scene shifts again, and Domonique now finds himself sitting in his living room, playing the game as if he was originally observing reality through the game, from an omniscient point of view, and that's all he could see. Now, however, he could see that he is the one holding the controller in a whole different reality. It is a quaint studio apartment. It's given the impression that it was handed down to him by his grandmother who is no longer here. The apartment seems like it's in shambles. Domonique has a guest over, but he does not know who it is. He goes to another room of the apartment and did not realize this room even existed, for it was a little den area by the kitchen in another room that was a new surprise to him. The apartment was in much need of some TLC. Dominique did not realize this fact so much until there was a knock at the door and at the knock were three ladies. Dominique knows them from somewhere but can't remember or has not seen them in a long time. They're asking for a steak or a fish or some kind of meat to help them prepare for dinner. Now and Dominique invites them in the house almost reluctantly but does so because he does not want them to wait outside. And once they come in and they come into the kitchen then that's when Dominique really notices how disturbing and dirty his living quarters are. One of the ladies notices a pungent smell of rotting fish, and then Domonique does see a rotting fish in the fridge, but he cannot smell it, which he finds odd. There are carpets in the kitchen, and there are stains on all of the fibres. Domonique is moved to start spraying frantically, as if to have some inclination to not be perceived as dirty. He sprays in the kitchen, he sprays in the closet, he sprays in other rooms and is almost flabbergasted at how he did not know these rooms existed before. It turns out that there is nothing to eat in the fridge, so the ladies dismiss themselves. And the dream is over.
