Gorilla? I don’t even know her.
“OMG, you would not believe this dream I had last night.”
Steve reached across the table for the creamer, letting out a deep sigh, shaking his head. “It was fucking bananas…” His face stays the same, as the room around him changes. No longer a diner, but a dark alley. THE Dark Alley, the stereotypical one we’ve all seen a million times on TV.
“So I’m in this alley behind…” he looks around “um, like…I don’t know. Maybe behind the Lincoln Tap Room or something.” He shrugs and continues. “And it doesn’t feel exactly right, so I’m already on guard. Then, I hear this low growl. And I look down towards the street, but instead of like, empty boxes and stuff by the dumpsters, there are a bunch notebooks. All stacked up.”
“Like Macbooks?” a disembodied voice says.
Steve looks annoyed. The alley is gone, we’re back in the diner. He looks across at Pedro, the question still sitting on his face. “No, man, like NOTEBOOK notebooks. Like the kind you write shit down in when you know…like old school shit. Paper.” Pedro nods, and we get a half-hearted “oh, crazy” from the third person at the table, Melanie, while she scans the menu.
Steve pours the creamer into his coffee. With a mumbled “anyway…” we’re back in the alley. Steve looks up, and around and then squints at something in the distance. “and then I see this….something…something big…coming down the alley, moving towards me. It’s not moving fast, exactly. More kind of deliberate and steady.” He’s still looking calm, but he starts backing away slowly.
“Then all of the sudden it’s RIGHT UP IN MY FACE.”
BOOM up pops a big dark mass right next to him. The shape moves from blurry to sharp focus. Steve stand there, narrating. “It’s a giant fucking gorilla man, just right there in front of me. We’re like nose to nose at this point and I’m scared, but I’m like…also a bit curious. Like what the fuck is actually happening with this gorilla all up in my business?”
The Gorilla lets out a breath through its nose and without breaking eye contact, pushes something towards Steve. Steve unconsciously grabs this blurry shape, without realizing its weight as The Gorilla lets go. He bends slightly, looking down.
“And then he hands me this…like typewriter, man.”
“A what now?” and we’re back in the diner.
Steve stops, sighs, and takes a sip of coffee. “A typewriter. It’s like the shit you used to do computer stuff before there were computers. It’s like…for secretaries and stuff? My grandma still has one in her house and…I actually think this was that one, this was exactly my grandma’s typewriter!” Melanie doesn’t look up from her phone while she monotones “woah, insane.”
“Anyway” woosh, we’re back in the alley.
Steve is holding the typewriter which has now changed into a sharper image of a perfect, lovely old typewriter in a sky blue colour. He looks down at it, then back to the Gorilla. And he says, “what am I supposed to do with this?” The Gorilla looks at him, its expression growing slightly more threatening as he raises his arm. Steve winces a bit, not backing away, not exactly. As the Gorilla raises its arm, and simply points.
He follows with his eyes and sees a doorway open up in the back of the building. “There 1 million percent was not a doorway there a second ago. And not only there, it’s like..GLOWING. I mean, whatever is in there is glowing. So now I’m curious, right? So I go”
Passing The Gorilla, Steve keeps eye contact just until he’s a few steps away and then the turns to face the door he’s walking towards “and as I get closer, I realise that it’s kind of a big room, and there are a bunch of people in there, all sitting at desks and all of them have typewriters.” Steve walks into the room. There have got to be almost a hundred people in there, all clacking away at different versions of typewriters. Some are smiling and typing quickly, confidently, the look of someone who has something to say and can’t wait to get it out. Others are pecking at keys, unsure how to actually use this machine, or maybe just unsure of their own story.
“And then I see that there is one desk free. And it’s…” he pauses, looking around the room. “I just UNDERSTAND that I need to go there. That it’s MY desk.” And I’m like… ok, I guess this is my life now.” Steve moves to the desk, puts his typewriter down and takes a seat. “So I sit down, and the thing is all set up in front of me, paper is in it, light is on, which… I mean, I guess that means it’s working and stuff. But like… what am I supposed to DO, man?
So I look up, and The Gorilla is standing right in front of my desk now, and it looks like, kind of happier? Like not angry for sure. So I just decide that I guess I should ask it. So I say ‘um. Ok, what am I supposed to do now?”
The Gorilla’s face moves closer and pretty soon it’s all Steve can see. The face of The Gorilla. No longer threatening, in fact, it looks like it’s on the verge of laughter.
“And then this motherfucker says “Human type story. Type until masterpiece”
The voice changes to a woman’s voice, struggling to contain laughter “Human make Gorilla Shakespeare!”
With those words, the room melts away, The Gorilla changes shape, and a woman who’s probably in her late 20s, long messy box dyed red hair, wearing a pair of turquoise blue coveralls takes its place, and she’s expectantly looking around, eyes wet with tears. There is no more Steve, no more Gorilla, just this woman, Bea, sitting around a table in what looks like a break room, a story. And they are, thankfully, for the most part, laughing.
“You did not” says one of them, shaking his head with a smile “what were you expecting?”
“I absolutely did” Bea holds up the fuzzy mass in her hand, which, now that we’re really looking at it, focusing on it… we realize it’s a gorilla mask, and a really bad one. Its fur is matted, eye holes too big, and you can tell how it smells just by looking at it. “and I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking ‘why do we have to do all the work, like let them come up with a storyline or two since we’re there, right?”
Bharat, still shaking his head a bit, clapped her on the back. “ok, that’s fair. Did you see any of what The Dreamer was writing?”
Nash looked up from what she was tinkering with in her lap. She’d been sort of half paying attention, but now, she was focused. Coming up with the storyline was the part she hated the most. Props was where she shined.
“No, I mean, kind of, it looked mostly like some sort of typical unconscious wish-fulfillment sort of deal, like “once upon a time there was a guy and all his friends thought he was the best”. Nothing usable.” She looked over at Nash. “but, I’m still pretty good at coming up with bullshit, so we can brainstorm some stuff for your next show. When is it?”
Nash looked at the old digital clock on the wall. It was right under a faded printout with If you have time to lean, you have time to dream along with some obvious clip art of a duck and some sparkles on it. “In about 10 minutes, and I’m a little stuck. Here’s the briefing.” She hands Bea a printout on green and white striped paper:
BRIEF #7882-Δ
“Omg, Nash, you’ve got this” Bea said, handing the briefing back. “So you’re in the grocery store, right, obviously because” she waves her hands around. “And so you just have the flamingo come up and go “excuse me, did you see there’s a sale on hummus? But you know in like a super sexy way so that The Dreamer is all like… oh, really? For meeeee?”
She holds her hands over her chest, bowing her head looking a little fake embarrassed.
“Then from there, easy peasy. The math teacher is doing an interpretive dance that The Dreamer understands as ‘Your new love interest is super into you because even though you sucked at math, you got that A’ and then he dances away, The Dreamer is all ‘oh yeah I did’ and then the flamingo comes back and is like ‘excuse me, did you check your mail? You can’t leave unless you got that coupon’ and The Dreamer is going to be like…’ok do I really need that hummus that badly?’ and then The Flamingo drops it: ‘Your new love interest really wants that hummus.’ Annnd…dream!”
Bea extends her arms in a “taaaadaaaa” flourish.
Nash sits there thinking, looking down at what she’s been tinkering with. It’s a few pink pipe cleaners and some pink feathers that looks way more like a flamingo than it has any business looking like. She really is good at props. She picks up the brief, looks at it again. “ok, but what about the ending? It seems like everything is kind of tidy here, no loose ends.”
Bea leans over the table, grinning. “No, that’s the best part, because The Dreamer is going to be like ‘I don’t really want the hummus’ because they really don’t want to open their mail, and let’s be real, like 95 percent of time waking tech doesn’t work over here anyway, so they’ll be all “wait, do I really even want hummus that badly? Or do I just want to get laid?”
”Plus, when they wake up whatever they remember they’ll just be like…oh yeah. totally hummus induced.” Bharat smiled. “It’s a solid plan.”
Nash started to slowly smile and nod. “yeah, Bea, that’s good. I like that.” She took out a pen and wrote “hummus coupon” on a post-it note, and stuck it on the Flamingo. She picked up a Darth Vader action figure with a post-it saying “your math teacher” on it, and headed towards the door. “Thank you! I’m going to grab the grocery store backdrop and head to the stage. See you later!”
Bea flipped her a little jaunty salute, then looked over at Bahrat, Josie and Ted, the remainder of her shift-mates. “Ok then, I guess, back to work” she said slapping her hands on her knees and getting up from the table. Ted looked at her, mildly annoyed “yay, work, work is fun, it’s so so great” he said, also getting up, as the printer starts buzzing. Bea didn’t even look back at him as she walked over to the printer, ripped off the briefing, glanced at it with a smile and then headed out to the prop room. “best job in the world” she said happily as the door closed behind her.
“Honestly” Ted said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like we’re making art here. It’s not like we’re in Lucid or Prophetic or even fucking fate-adjacent. The BDD is lame, and I do not get her “go get ‘em tiger!” attitude.
“My guy” Josie said, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at him “first off, Lucid is a total shit show. The Dreamers are like, fighthing you half the time, and sometimes they REALLY see you and they fuck with your work and even completely take over sometimes. Like, you think our dreamers are bad? There is no sayin no to a dreamer who goes fully lucid. They take over, your vision is out the window, boom, done gone. No thank you.”
She took off a couple of beautiful bangles from her perfectly-tanned-but-not-too-tanned wrist as she continued “and honestly, being an oracle must be pretty creepy. I mean, who wants to know half of that stuff, and then your Dreamer is probably just screaming the whole time anyway.”
Wrinkling up her nose and pushing a lock of pure black hair out of her face, she shook her head back and forth. “Uh-uh. No thank you very much. Basic Dream Division really is pretty close to perfect, it’s like all the nocturnal narrative, none of the drama.” The printer started buzzing again, and she walked over to it, tore off a brief, gave it a glance and breezed out the door, tucking her bangles into her overalls.
Bahrat looked over at Ted “She’s right, I worked in Lucid ops for like a minute. It was awful. I think the only way you can really do that is if you just don’t really care about what goes through.”
“I mean, I get that. Maybe Lucid was a bad example, but like I mean even the ADT has to be more interesting than this.” Ted said, pointedly looking over at the printer that had printed out another briefing. Pointedly not picking it up. “Who really cares about these run-of-the-mill basics. Like, we’re not changing lives, we’re not making an actual difference. It’s just…” He sighed, got up and walked over to the printer. Tore off the assignment and looked at it. Sighed. “it’s just noise” he said dejectedly as he walked out the door.
“NO NO NO NO NO” Bahrat was staring at Ted, looking horrified, while Josie just kind of rolled her eyes. Nash, as usual was using tweezers to perfectly place rhinestones on a greeting card so that it reads I’m always ok, you’re never ok. The smiley face in glitter glue was already in place.
Bea was shaking her head back and forth, hands over her mouth until they could no longer hold back her words. “COME ON” she yelled throwing those same hands up in the air. “It literally says AVOID SQUIRRELS. Not ‘Make the childhood friend an orange squirrel that keeps asking why it’s orange. I know you’re new, but I assume you do know how to read?” She was now fully up in Ted’s face. But he wasn’t meeting her gaze. He was just sanding there, clutching a big orange stuffed squirrell in his fist, windchimes entangled in it’s tail.
“Yes, I know how to read, but I didn’t really think..”
“Dream logic 101!” She interuped “ if you let The Dreamer add anything, they will always, ALWAYS go off brief. “ She stopped, looked at Ted for a second. Her face softened and she reached for the squirrel in his tightly clenched fist. As she pulled it up, he realized how hard he was holding onto to it, and slightly embarrased, he let it go, the windchimes clanging out a sad melody as they bumped into each other and then the floor, falling free of the squirrel’s tail at last.
“Look” Bea said, smiling softly “I’m sorry, I was kind of out of line there. I’m not your boss or anything, so I’m not sure why I’m giving you lectures. I just…” her brow furrowed a little bit before she continued. “I just hate to see anyone on the team not having a good time with this.” she looked around the break room, her gaze lingered for a beat on a sign on the fridge that says It’s always sleep o’clock somewhere with that familiar terrible clip art of a sleeping person, full on Zzzzz coming out of their mouth, disembodied arms holding two puppets in front of their closed eyes.
“This thing is kind of special, and I mean, it’s easy, and it’s fun.” She shrugged. “At least, it’s the best gig I’ve ever had”. As the printer started to buzz, she moved towards it, pulled off the brief and had a look.
“I mean, where else would I get to pretend to be a tiger in fucking OUTER SPACE? FedEx/Kinkos? Taco Bell/KFC? How about No/Where? So maybe think about the weird, wonderful kind of work you’re doing or you know, CAN do and just lean into it and try to have the tiniest bit of actual fun.” She opened the fridge and grabbed a jar of pickles, started to close the door but opened it up again and grabbed an egg, kicking the door closed behind her as she turned around and walked out the door with the squirrel and windchimes tucked neeatly under her arm.
Ted sighed, and went and sat down at the table next to Nash. “How long have you been doing this, Nash?” He asked as she placed her final stone, then went back and fussed with it until it was perfectly aligned.
Her brow furrowed a bit, but she didn’t look up from her work as she answerd “um…I don’t know. I mean…time you know? It’s whatever”. Josie nodded as she flipped through a magazine, Ted was able to make out a fish jumping over a carton of milk on one page and someone holding up three fingers and a triangle with the word VERB on another. “Yeah, Ted, I mean, that’s kind of a dumb question, no offence.” The printer started going off and Josie stood up, paused before tearing off the brief and turned to Ted “do you want to take this one? You know, get back up on the horse or whatever?”
He thought for a beat, and then nodded. “Yeah, ok, fine. I’m going to get fucking excited about whatever is on that page and give someone the best damn dream of their life!” as he walked to the printer, and tore off the briefing with gusto.
Ted was sitting back at the table, laughing. All eyes were on him - even Nash was smiling and paying attention. Baraht was looking at him, almost painfully hanging on every word. “Come on, wait. The snack was…”
“The goat was the snack!” Ted burst out, excitedly. “I mean, not really, but the goat walked The Dreamer through making cheese FROM HIMSELF and then handed The Dreamer crackers and only then The Dreamer was like…wait, this is why that letter said I should save room for company, right? NOW I FUCKING GET IT!”
“Wow, Ted, I’m impressed” Bea said, clapping him on the back. “That is some next level work, I bet that’s going to have a fucking fantasitc retention. More of a hard land than a soft splash for sure.”
“I mean, it actually was kind of fun. I need to get back to set, though, I left the hallway on stage. It’s a pain in the ass to put up and break down, so…kind of hoping someone wants to use it?” He looked around hopefully.
“Oh, absolutely, that’s perfect for me” Josie stood up “I can use that and tag it with “your high school” on a stickie for my next gig” She picked up the wind up godzilla and sparklers, giving a quick peace sign on her way out.
The printer went off again, Bahrat stood up, walked over and pulled it off, not even glancing at what was on it as he headed towards the door and the prop room beyond. “Really nice work, Ted, I mean, we know that recall rate isn’t everything, I mean, this isn’t night terrors, but I do think that The Dreamer is going to be telling people about that one for a while.”
As soon as the door closed, Bea stood up, streched and looked at Ted. She walked straight past a punch clock with cards that said “IN” with everyone’s name, as well as a few other names. Zoren. Not Kevin. Victoria. Casper. Mouse. And one simply labled ?xx. “Want to go grab a snack at the bar? It’s on me, for being such a bitch earlier”.
“Sure, I’d like that” Ted got up and walked towards the door. “But I mean, there’s a vending machine right down the hall..”
“Oh Ted, no.” Bea opens up the door for Ted and he walkes on through “That’s only for the ADD, it’s like…bugs and baby birds and things for the animal dreams. If you ate something out of that, please don’t tell me about it, I’ll hurl”
The door closes behind them, and the sound of their banter fades, and the printer popping on fills the silence of the break room.
