Tag: test

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Dream Journal

Investigation through the Portal to Birdworld

A pregnant stuntwoman parachutes from great height over a dense urban landscape, steering with her flightsuit, but her parachute never opens and she lands in a massive shockwave. The body is is never found and the impact site never pinpointed, so I’m sent to investigate. It’s suspected she didn’t crash, but was working with a covert group to use the jump to punch open a portal. I work semi-undercover in an office near the impact zone, one that’s apparently been shockwaved back through time, as it’s helping produce the show M AS*H. In commemoration of this I leave a postcard for my future self, drawing out big abstract cursive “MASH” letters, having great difficulty signing my name.

The portal must have been real — I pass into an alternate dimension where birds were the creatures that evolved into people. I’m able to blend in as long as I wear full-coverage clothing, which conceals my non-feathered skin. I get a tip that I should seek information on the person of interest I’m looking in the lobby of The W hotel. A large, puffy, white, embroidered ‘W’ takes up a full wall behind the desk. Under a disused wooden lectern, I find a mysterious handwritten note.

Later, I’m seated in the last row of a plane, being given an English test. The instructor doesn’t seem to acknowledge that their instructions are vague and contradictory. After several minutes of backtracking, I begin collaborating with other test-takers in front of me to corroborate the test’s poor instructions. It’s so bad that I’m thinking the only way to deal with it is to convince the instructor to invalidate the entire thing.

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Dream Journal

Field Trip Rest Stop

Driving for a long time down a freeway backwards. I’m sitting in the back seat of this station wagon, enjoying my half sleep. By the time I spot a freeway exit the driver seems used to reversing, has even somewhat forgot they’re doing it. We take a rest for awhile during which time it becomes more like a sleepover class field trip.

I go to get coffee, considering whether I even want to drink much of it since I’ve been having such a nice sleep. I find a tap placed around a curved wall in rustic, 1940s era hammered enameled metal. Its label reads “Beverly” which I recognize as a generic vintage brand. I sample just a little bit. It’s honestly not bad (reminds me of my Nana), but I notice around the opposite wall, in a darker alcove, a tap for Folgers (I think this was my parents brand). Masochistically, I sample the unappealing dirt-colored liquid, then immediately plunge into a reverie about how you could drink this every morning as a parent — and fuzzily, apathetically, read a new disposable kids book to them every day.

I return to see my classmates/travel companions lined up in library-style booths. The teacher (akin to 11th grade chemistry’s Mr. Brown) has assigned a test sheet he found at the rest stop, one that even has scrawl copied at the top already. I carefully evaluate it, concluding it’s busywork of no value to anyone, and I decide it’d be better for him to have “lost” my paper if it ever matters. While gathering my stuff to leave, I check out the carpet, which will alter color to distinct shades of blue depending on how much water is spilled on it. Looks like carpet mosaic tiles.

I step outside onto a crowded patch of grass at the roadside, where many class friends are already waiting for the bus to pull round. I notice that most of us have coordinated our gear to match, and the colors we chose are mostly a few degrees away from each other. I notice Christy T. (who I went to school with from 3rd to 11th grade), has a surprisingly bright shade of khaki, the same as my big kratom bag.