Dream Digestion

Nineteen-year-old Celeste sprawls across the desk. The alarm clock on her bedside table displays the time in red, flashing digits, but Celeste’s eyes are sealed shut. Her chemistry notes are scattered across the floor along with three, empty soda cans and a cardboard pizza box. Beneath her cheek: a list of terms and a hand-drawn diagram of an atom. From this perspective, it might not look like much is going on, except for maybe a little drooling, but deep in Celeste’s subconscious, something hairy is happening.

In the first room on the left at the top of the stairs behind the central cortex, the little people are just getting started. That is, the little people that control our dreams. They are sitting in swivel chairs, typing on keyboards, pressing buttons and scanning screens. In the room’s center, a trim woman in a tweed business suit barks out orders.

“Someone get me an emotive reading! I want to know exactly what Celeste was feeling when she fell asleep,” she shouts in a crisp, clear voice.

“35-27-90,” a man in a swivel chair calls out over the hubbub. “Boy, was she stressed! And—hey, looks like we’ve got a visual on camera 5!”

“Time of capture?” the woman asks, crossing the room to peer over his shoulder.

“9:30 am,” he replies.

“She would have been in Sociology class then,” the woman says, pursing her lips.  “Okay, run it on the big screen.” The little man complies and presses a switch. A moment later, the mammoth projector suspended from the ceiling crackles to life. The general uproar in the room quiets as everyone stops to watch.

They see through Celeste’s eyes: A classroom of about thirty students, slumping in desks arranged in rows of eight or nine. A gaunt, ghost-eyed man pacing in front of a white board. His hands, the most animated thing in the room, hacking, now clawing, now tearing at the air. A classmate whispering in Celeste’s ear, “God, he’s so creepy!” Celeste’s hushed voice shooting back, “I know right? He looks like a zombie.”

“Pause!” the woman’s voice breaks in, and the image obediently freezes . “Play that part again.” Someone types a command into the computer, and Celeste’s voice rings out a second time.

 “-ow right? He looks like a zombie.” The woman’s eyes brighten.

“Quick, what was that movie she watched the other night, mutant-zombie something or another? I want it on screen, and someone scan an image of that professor with a red and black film, pronto!”

The room snaps to life as everyone races to obey. Seconds letter, a girl with a white-blond ponytail shoots her hand into the air, screaming, “Got it!” She flips a switch and the screen comes back to life.

They see through Celeste’s eyes: the inside of a crowded movie theatre. The room is dark, the only light coming from those little lamps under the stairs. The screen is also mostly dark, only blurred, humanoid shapes and shaky camera movement inform the audience what is taking place. That and the nightmarish cries being emitted by the larger-than-life, surround-sound speakers.

“Get me an emotive reading,” the woman says without stopping the recording.

“21-55-55,” a man’s voice replies.

“Hm.” A moment of thoughtful deliberation. “All right, use the film as a backdrop. Layer the audio with some white noise... the bedroom fan should work. And what was that guy’s name, the one that took her out for coffee the other night? Kirk! Kirk gets a cameo—” something catches her eyes.

A theatre employee is escorting someone out of the movie, a middle-school-aged boy who must have slipped into the theatre without a ticket. The employee is wearing a brilliant red suit that practically glows in the dark. As he descends the stairs, gaudy golden tassels can be seen dangling from his shoulders and breast pocket. A tall hat completes the hideous ensemble.

“—Kirk gets a cameo, and I want him wearing that,” the woman orders, pointing at the screen. Someone snickers, but she ignores them. “All right, team, no time to loose! We’re on in three, two...”

The alarm clock by Celeste’s bed shrieks, jolting her awake. One hand shoots up to cover her ear, while the other grasps the table, trying to steady herself as she tumbles, still bleary-eyed, from her chair. She reaches the alarm clock in a second and shuts it off, then turns to survey the room. It’s in that moment she remembers her dream, flashing through her mind’s eye like a slide show, each image frozen in time, as clearly as if it had happened only moments before. Zombies, her sociology professor, and—what the heck was Kirk wearing? Slowly, Celeste’s eyes light on the soda cans and pizza box strewn across the floor, and she groans.

“I guess that’s what I get for eating pizza before bed…”