The Teenaged Dreams Of Lauren Hamami (December 2015)
by Lauren Hamami
Dreamt i was sitting at a table with my mom in a hip hair salon, waiting for our cuts. Hip music was playing on the speakers, it was mid day. There were lots of "trashy but cool" 18 year old boys sitting at the table with me. People were smoking cigs inside. There were three cats there. Then in my dream, i woke up from that dream and got on a school bus to go on a field trip. When we arrived at our destination, the bus was parked on an absolute downward slope and i accidentally fell on a girl named shelby on my way out. She got mad at me for this which i let her her know was absurd because it was an accident and she was ultimately mad at gravity. This made her even more upset and all of the sudden my classmates were polarized: there were people that felt bad for her and were mad at me, and there were people that thought she was being dumb about the situation. Once we got off the bus we were at a sort of festival and there were lots of people and food trucks around. I caught a glance at the woman selling beers and knew who she was and decided to try and avoid her since she knew i was only 20. I asked my friend to buy a beer for me and as i was walking out of the lady's line of sight, se saw me for a moment. She still gave us beers so i decided i would go talk to her. She was my moms friend, and i used to babysit her daughter, morgan. I walked up to the front of the line and said "hey, youre morgans mom, right?" i knew she was but i asked anyway. She said "no", without any sympathy. Then she asked me -as if she were some other worldly being, and very calmly: "so... What did you dream about last night?" the question caught me off guard, i began fidgeting with the napkins in the napkin holder that was on the countertop. She stood there with a spatula in one hand and a half smile on her face. I said "ummmm" to stall as if i was thinking about it. Then i remembered; "oh yeah! I was at this hip hair salon with my mom." as i went on describing the dream i was suddenly elsewhere: in the same structure that the salon was in. Only this time it was a mini mall, only one shop was a hair salon. I looked around and thought about the similarities between this place and the hair salon i dreamt of: there were trashy kids playing hip music on the speakers, three napkins with pictures of cats on them at the same table i sat at in the dream, and my mom was there. This freaked me out in a good way, i was excited. I remember walking to where the north-most wall was in the salon, it did not exist in this mall; a hustling a bustling barnes and noble was there instead. I teetered on the threshold between the two places and felt like i couldn't breathe. I couldn't bring myself to leave the familiar structure, i thought that might wake me up.
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