Meow, that hurts

Bea was excited. Like, excited excited, not her normal level of glee. Josie and Nesh looked at each other; Josie raised an eyebrow, Nesh shrugged in response, a half-smile on her lips.

"Okay, I have my staircase," she said, holding up a piece of cardboard folded to look like stairs. A post-it note on the top had two words: spiral and luxurious. A random wire dangled from the bottom. "And check this out." She paused, made sure everyone was paying attention, and then… button press!

The staircase lit up with tiny LED lights blinking erratically. "Oh, wait." She pressed the button again. Now they blinked more slowly. Press. Solid light. Sigh. Press again. A soft glow appeared, growing brighter, fading, then returning to that soft glow.

"Huh?" she said proudly, one hand pointing to her cardboard masterpiece. "Right?"

Silence. Blank looks.

Ted leaned across the table, squinting. "I mean, it’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but… I guess I don’t get it?"

Bea sighed. "Okay, hold on."

She grabbed more things from her bag and plopped them onto the table. A small rectangular mirror with a post-it that read your mother. Five small dolls, four with tape over their mouths. And a door lovingly crafted out of construction paper, bearing the words so small and you know you want to, with an arrow pointing to a drawn-on doorknob.

She looked expectantly at the group. Nothing.

"It’s really nice," Nesh said, finally breaking the silence.

"It’s not nice, it’s epic!" Bea barked, clearly frustrated. She pulled out her final piece: an old cassette player. She hit play and dared them not to love it.

A few chords. Then someone softly singing:

Thank you for coming home
Sorry that the chairs are all worn
I left them here, I could have sworn...

Josie’s eyes lit up. "Oh, I know this! It’s… um…"

These are my salad days
Slowly being eaten away
Just another play for today
Oh but I’m proud of you…

Ted hummed along. "Wait, I think I love this song. What is it again?"

"Exactly," Bea said, abruptly slamming the stop button. With a satisfied grin, she stood. "They’ll be like, ‘I know this, but from where?’ All day. It’s going to haunt them."

She confidently scooped up her props, carefully tucking them back into her bag. "The Dreamer is in for a fucking TREAT."

Bahrat watched her pack up. "Okay, but… let me see that brief." He held out his hand.

Bea handed him the paper on the table, wrapping the staircase wire around her hand to avoid tangling.

BRIEF 8843-JNT

"Okay, yeah, I see it. But I guess I’m missing the storyline. What are you planning on having the voice say? That seems kind of important."

Bea grabbed the brief back with one hand, gesturing with the other and her light-up staircase.

"I’m going to play it by ear. See what The Dreamer brings up and riff off that. I’ve done it a thousand times. No worries." She smiled. "Okay, disbelievers, see you after the show. Can’t wait to tell you all about it."

Josie called after her, "Hey, can I get that tape when you’re done?" But Bea was already out the door. Josie shrugged and went back to her magazine.

---

Bea was sitting in the break room. And she was in a mood. Ted and Josie walked in, laughing.

Ted said, "I mean, the teeth thing is so overdone, but you made it feel fresh. That’s amazing."

Josie smiled but brushed it off. "It just kind of came to me. But I’m pretty sure the recall on that one is going to hit."

They felt Bea before they saw her. The emotional weather in the room was thick, heavy.

"Hey…..Bea, how did that staircase-mirror show go?" Ted asked. "I bet the multiple-voice one-mouth thing killed."

Bea didn’t look up from her Oodles of Noodles cup, stirring morosely. "Yeah, it was fine, I guess." She stabbed a rehydrated pea and brought it sadly to her mouth.

Josie and Ted looked at each other. Ted gave Josie the your turn look. Josie scrunched her face briefly, then recovered.

"Um, so… fine is fine, right? Do you want… to… I don’t know… taaaaalk about it or something?"

Bea stabbed her fork back into the noodles. Heavy sigh.

Ted, now genuinely concerned, sat down next to her. "Hey," he said kindly. "What happened?"

Bea looked up, shoulders slumped. "It was fine. Like, you know… um. It went okay." Her lower lip twitched. Her eyes welled up.

Josie sat on her other side. "Okay, what really happened?"

Bea sighed. And let loose.

"So it was going really well. The staircase was perfect. They really wanted to go into the little door—like "Okay, yeah, I see it. But I guess I’m missing the storyline. What are you planning on having the voice say? That seems kind of important."

Bea grabbed the brief back with one hand, gesturing with the other and her light-up staircase.

"I’m going to play it by ear. See what The Dreamer brings up and riff off that. I’ve done it a thousand times. No worries." She smiled. "Okay, disbelievers, see you after the show. Can’t wait to tell you all about it."

Josie called after her, "Hey, can I get that tape when you’re done?" But Bea was already out the door. Josie shrugged and went back to her magazine.

Bea was sitting in the break room. And she was in a mood. Ted and Josie walked in, laughing. "I mean, the teeth thing is so overdone, but you made it feel fresh. That’s amazing."

Josie smiled but brushed it off. "It just kind of came to me. But I’m pretty sure the recall on that one is going to hit."

They felt Bea before they saw her. The emotional weather in the room was thick, heavy.

"Hey…..Bea, how did that staircase-mirror show go?" Ted asked. "I bet the multiple-voice one-mouth thing killed."

Bea didn’t look up from her Oodles of Noodles cup, stirring morosely. "Yeah, it was fine, I guess." She stabbed a rehydrated pea and brought it sadly to her mouth.

Josie and Ted looked at each other. Ted gave Josie the your turn look. Josie scrunched her face briefly, then recovered.

"Um, so… fine is fine, right? Do you want… to… I don’t know… taaaaalk about it or something?"

Bea stabbed her fork back into the noodles. Heavy sigh.

Ted, now genuinely concerned, sat down next to her. "Hey," he said kindly. "What happened?"

Bea looked up, shoulders slumped. "It was fine. Like, you know… um. It went okay." Her lower lip twitched. Her eyes welled up.

Josie sat on her other side. "Okay, what really happened?"

Bea sighed. And let loose.

"So it was going really well. The staircase was perfect. They really wanted to go into the little door—like REALLY wanted in. And they looked into the mirror and totally saw their mom. That was all perfect. But then the mom opened her mouth and out comes all this stuff. Like… a lot of stuff. I could barely keep up. Apparently, I chose the worst possible mirror reflection person."

Ted and Josie exchanged a glance.

"That doesn’t sound… so bad?" Ted asked.

Silence. Complete silence.

Bea finally replied, "Yeah, but they yanked the narrative right out from under me. I kept trying to bring focus back to the door, but The Dreamer and their mirror mom just kept on yacking. Suddenly that was the dream. I even started playing the song, but they drowned it out with their conversation. I had zero control. And the worst part? It was a GOOD storyline. Like, where they took it? It was actually compelling. I just kind of sat there and… watched."

Josie put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, this sort of thing happens. It’s fine. The Dreamer probably won’t even remember. Maybe you can use some of it for something else next time?"

"No." Bea stood up, now gesticulating wildly. "And then suddenly? KITTENS. Like, so many kittens. I didn’t bring kittens into this thing. Where the fuck did the kittens come from?"

"Well," Ted started cautiously, "I guess from… cats?"

"THERE WERE NO CATS. God. I mean, wtf."

Bea started pacing.

"So Mirror Mother starts talking about how proud she is of The Dreamer and even though I had, like, six other people in the mirror and the mouth that was moving was NOT the mom, The Dreamer was like ‘oh wow, that’s so cool’ and then the mother was like ‘Here is a reward for everything amazing you ever accomplished’ And then suddenly? KITTENS. Like, biblical-plague levels of kittens. I didn’t bring kittens into this thing! Where the fuck did the kittens come from? And they were adorable! Which distracted me and soon I’m like, playing with kittens—I mean, I really don’t know how long exactly. But I look over and now Mirror Mom is leaning halfway outside the mirror, the mouthless chorus has stopped murmuring and THEY are each holding at least one kitten and The Dreamer and Mirror Mom are hugging. And there’s a laser light show—like the ‘get stoned and watch a laser show’ kind, complete with unicorns and shit. It just keeps building and building and I am—"

We cut to Bea’ point of view. Lasers flashing. Sky lighting up red, blue, yellow. Smoke everywhere. KITTENS. The Dreamer hugging Mirror Mom. Five mouthless figures, each holding a kitten. Bea looks down. Two kittens in her own hands, gazing up adoringly.

"—I am fucking loving it. Music swelling. Lights speeding up. Kittens flying through the air. All anchored around this hug."

Josie and Ted are spellbound. Josie lets out a soft "woooooow."

"And then?"

Bea looks at them, eyes wide.

"Silence."

"Oooooh," Ted says. "Overstimulation followed by—"

Josie finishes, "Long silences."

"What?” Bea shook her head, clearly confused.

Ted turned the brief to face her and pointed “Look here: It’s just like in the brief.”

Bea’ eyes got wide. “Omg. This was 100% written, directed, and starring… The Dreamer. I didn’t even need to be there. And the worst part? It was SUCH a good show."

She plopped back into her chair, fully pouting.

Josie rubbed her back, awkward but sincere. "Okay, but like, that mirror moment? That was all you. None of that could’ve happened without you."

"Yeah," Ted said. "And the little door! You said they really wanted to go into that door, right? That’s good."

Bea brightened, just a little. "Yeah, the door thing was really working. But I had this plan to bring it back at the end, and by then I was just… a passenger."

"So how did you end it? Or is it… still going?" Josie asked.

"Oh, I just shut it down. After the long silence, I kind of snapped out of it."

Back on stage, Bea looked down. Her hands were empty. No kittens. The lights and fog were gone. Her props the mirror, tiny door, and staircase sat in front of the Dreamer, who was beginning to fade. Bea thought she saw them look directly at her giving her a smile and thumb’s up? The Dreamer faded. Then vanished.

Bea shook her head and hit a button. Lights up. A red curtain lowered with the words: Thanks for coming, get home safely.
wanted in. And they looked into the mirror and totally saw their mom. That was all perfect. But then the mom opened her mouth and out comes all this stuff. Like… a lot of stuff. I could barely keep up. Apparently, I chose the worst possible mirror reflection person."

Ted and Josie exchanged a glance.

"That doesn’t sound… so bad?" Ted asked.

Silence. Complete silence.

Bea finally replied, "Yeah, but they yanked the narrative right out from under me. I kept trying to bring focus back to the door, but The Dreamer and their mirror mom just kept on yacking. Suddenly that was the dream. I even started playing the song, but they drowned it out with their conversation. I had zero control. And the worst part? It was a GOOD storyline. Like, where they took it? It was actually compelling. I just kind of sat there and… watched."

Josie put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, this sort of thing happens. It’s fine. The Dreamer probably won’t even remember. Maybe you can use some of it for something else next time?"

"No." Bea stood up, now gesticulating wildly. "And then suddenly? KITTENS. Like, so many kittens. I didn’t bring kittens into this thing. Where the fuck did the kittens come from?"

"Well," Ted started cautiously, "I guess from… cats?"

"THERE WERE NO CATS. God. I mean, wtf."

Bea started pacing.

"So Mirror Mother starts talking about how proud she is of The Dreamer and even though I had, like, six other people in the mirror and the mouth that was moving was NOT the mom, The Dreamer was like ‘oh wow, that’s so cool’ and then the mother was like ‘Here is a reward for everything amazing you ever accomplished’ And then suddenly? KITTENS. Like, biblical-plague levels of kittens. I didn’t bring kittens into this thing! Where the fuck did the kittens come from? And they were adorable! Which distracted me and soon I’m like, playing with kittens—I mean, I really don’t know how long exactly. But I look over and now Mirror Mom is leaning halfway outside the mirror, the mouthless chorus has stopped murmuring and THEY are each holding at least one kitten and The Dreamer and Mirror Mom are hugging. And there’s a laser light show—like the ‘get stoned and watch a laser show’ kind, complete with unicorns and shit. It just keeps building and building and I am—"

We cut to Bea’ point of view. Lasers flashing. Sky lighting up red, blue, yellow. Smoke everywhere. KITTENS. The Dreamer hugging Mirror Mom. Five mouthless figures, each holding a kitten. Bea looks down. Two kittens in her own hands, gazing up adoringly.

"—I am fucking loving it. Music swelling. Lights speeding up. Kittens flying through the air. All anchored around this hug."

Josie and Ted are spellbound. Josie lets out a soft "woooooow."

"And then?"

Bea looks at them, eyes wide.

"Silence."

"Oooooh," Ted says. "Overstimulation followed by—"

Josie finishes, "Long silences."

"What?” Bea shook her head, clearly confused.

Ted turned the brief to face her and pointed “Look here: It’s just like in the brief.”

Bea’ eyes got wide. “Omg. This was 100% written, directed, and starring… The Dreamer. I didn’t even need to be there. And the worst part? It was SUCH a good show."

She plopped back into her chair, fully pouting.

Josie rubbed her back, awkward but sincere. "Okay, but like, that mirror moment? That was all you. None of that could’ve happened without you."

"Yeah," Ted said. "And the little door! You said they really wanted to go into that door, right? That’s good."

Bea brightened, just a little. "Yeah, the door thing was really working. But I had this plan to bring it back at the end, and by then I was just… a passenger."

"So how did you end it? Or is it… still going?" Josie asked.

"Oh, I just shut it down. After the long silence, I kind of snapped out of it."

Back on stage, Bea looked down. Her hands were empty. No kittens. The lights and fog were gone. Her props the mirror, tiny door, and staircase sat in front of the Dreamer, who was beginning to fade. Bea thought she saw them look directly at her giving her a smile and thumb’s up? The Dreamer faded. Then vanished.

Bea shook her head and hit a button. Lights up. A red curtain lowered with words she hadn’t written: Thanks for coming, get home safely.

Back in the break room, they just stared at her. Ted’s eyes were big, Josie’s mouth hanging open. The printer went off, Bea didn’t even look over at it. Ted shook his head, stood up and walked over and with an “Oh this one is all me” he rips it off and walks out the door, reading the briefing, passing Nash and Bahrat who are just walking in.

“Did you hear about the mess down in ADT? Apparently kittens all over the world suddenly like..had the same dream? All at the same time? Any sleeping kitten just suddenly was like… dream over and closed out of whatever dream they were having. And no one knows where they went.” Bahart crossed the room to the coffee machine while he broke the news.

Bea and Josie exchanged a quick look. “Um…” Bea started nocommitally “That’s weird, right? Do they have any idea what, like, caused it?”

“Nope” Nash chimed in “But we’re taking like thousands of kittens, not one over like 3 months old and all at the same time. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Oh” Josie said, a bit too causally. “That’s like yeah so crazy. Huh, so anyone have any good gigs today?” She sat up, smiling just a little too big. They were on to her.

“Josie, what did you do?” Bahrat said, leaning across the table towards her.

“What, me? Nothing! I was playing tooth, tooth, goose with some 7 year old. I haven’t done anything with kittens in weeks.” She sat back, arms crossed defensively across her chest.

Bea was looking through a magazine, suspisiciously quiet. Bahrat looked at her, looked at Nash, looked at Josie. Back to Bea. He sat silent for a few seconds. Now everyone was looking at Bea. She finally looked up with a sigh.

“Ok, so that might have been me losing control to The Dreamer and they might have suddenly summoned like ALL the kittens. Somehow?” With a shrug she tried to go back to her magazine. But Nash wasn’t having it. Her mouth was wide open and she was trying to process. “But like…wait…how, exactly? The Dreamer took over THAT MUCH ?”

“Fine” She put down the magazine with a slap. “I got distracted. there were kittens, and a laser light show and it was – honestly it was brilliant. This Dreamer isn’t like some ordinary Dreamer. They had…” Bea paused, and looked a little impressed “they had style. It was a really good dream, ok?”

Bahrat nods. “Yeah, yeah. Kittens and lasers, good stuff. But also some sort of tear in the dream fabric? Bad stuff. Like Lucid levels of control and we are not supposed to be putting on those shows. That is way above our pay grade and – no offense Bea – our experise.”

“Hey, I get you, I in no way want to fuck with the Lucid stuff. But like, I pulled the brief, I did the work, and honestly, if a few kittens...”

“A few thousand kittens” Nash corrected

“Fine” Bea nodded “a metric shit ton of kittens got pulled into this dream for a bit, but do we really need to write it up? Everything is back the way it should be, I have learned a valubale lesson about not giving The Dreamer and inch beause they will take a mile”

“A mile of fucking kittens” Ted grinned as he looks in the fridge, checks his brief, pulls out a container of potato salad, sniffs it, puts it back making a face, closes the door and moves over to the cabinets above the sink, searching for the right props.

“Bea, we’re absolutely writing it up” Bahrat says, walking over to the incedent report box and tearing off a slip of paper from a pad above it. He grabs a pen. “What time did you log it?”

Bea blinks. “Oh my god. I forgot to log it.”

Josie puts down her coffee. “YOU DIDN’T LOG THE DREAM?”

Bea groans, pulling the tape recorder out of her bag.

“It was a lot, Josie. I kind of had a lot going on after it was all over and like… I had my own emotions that I needed to tend to. Self care? Perhaps you know her?”

Ted, head still inside a cabient: “She said the kittens were biblical, she didn’t say they were billable.” Pulls out a can of baked beans with a grin and tosses it into his bag.

Bea slams her forehead on the table. “ohhhhh noes”

Nash comes over, and pulls up a seat next to Bea. She looks at Bahrat. “Hey, can I see that brief for sec?” she says, putting out her hand. Bahrat crosses the room and hands her the brief. She looks at it for a second, then she crumples it up and eats it.

“Wait…what” Bea looks at her, eyes wide in disbelief and Nash keeps chewing, drinking a bit of water to help disovle it. Josie is thrilled, throwing her arms around Nash.

“Omg, Giril! Way to fucking solve a problem. I love this side of you!”

Nash blushes and swallows the last of the brief with a gulp. Ted is speechless, staring at the action at the table with a small smile, but Bahrat? Bahrat is so obviously not a huge fan of this move.

“Oh, cool, good. Very very good. We just pretend like nothing happened then?” He says looking at Nash. Then Bea. Then back to Nash.

“You all realizes this is wildly unethical?, right?”

No one says a word. “Cool, just checking.” He throws up his hands gently and grabs a magazine. The printer starts going off and Bea quickly jumps up.

“I love this plan, great idea, Bharat.”

She runs over to it, tears the brief off almost before it finisihes printing.

“Ok, thank you all, wonderful bonding experience, can’t wait to fuck up again so we can all kumbaya. Cheers!” and she runs out.

Then she pops her head back in quickly “um….thank you, guys” and then she was gone.