I was with my sister and her boyfriend, Bryn. He was a tall, bulky… And bald guy (no offence to the other bald guys). Oh and he’s Chinese. He was wearing his usual plain black shirt and plaid shorts that are up to his knees and sneakers or as you young people call them by ‘converse’ with socks. My sister, in some weird white puffy dress, her baggy brown bag with leopard prints as the bag’s inner skin; fake leopard skin, of course. If it were real, I’d disown her as my sister. It was about… Night time I presume. We were at this really weird but cool-looking cinema. It’s like being in a space shuttle; period.
The staircase up into the theatre was made up metal and screws. The railings are also made of metal. People were hanging out my the staircase, leaning next to the arch that leads into the theatre which was complete covered by a velvet curtain with the colour of potassium permanganate. We waited around for the movie to start; I didn’t even know why I agreed to go to the movies with them. Time grew longer, eventually we got fed up from waiting for something that is still far from our grasp, so, Bryn suggested we go buy some snacks (I’m a kid in their eyes, I’m positive about that—I stand by what I said). I was all, “Okay, sure, let’s go.”
We came back with arms full of food and cups of liquid; soda, maybe, I don’t know. The place where we stood before was totally packed. My sister, like in reality, was texting away on the Whatsapp on her Samsung phone and not really paying much attention to what was going on. Our moods dropped instantly.
And here I am, in school, walking to my school’s church’s parish hall to attend some movie viewing thing. I walked with my ‘very nice guy’ Geography teacher, Mr. John—no really, he’s really nice, dream or no dream—who was telling me all about tectonic plates and whatnot with expressive hand gestures. We walked along the cobblestone path of the church’s front patio, pass the conference hall. As we walked pass the Catholic bulletin board, he told me this; “Now, you are sitting in 100A. And the person next to you is 100B.”
So, you know, I totally get it. My seat number’s 100A, which instantly gave me the impression I had the first seat out of dozens of students in my school. We finally entered into the hall. I smell paint coming from the stage; I believe they repainted their stage. I see an enormous sea of students chattering like busy bees. I, honestly, was worried where 100A was at. We were all sitting on the floor like it was some free seating or something and the parish hall looked like some hall without an end at the back (which has no back ironically). I awkwardly shuffled over to the corner of the square shaped crowd, nearest to the entrance, folded my legs even more awkwardly and just sat there, waiting… Awkwardly. Yes, even in my dreams I am the most socially awkward faggot in the world.
Then I found myself in the hall with dimmed lights that are only set on the stage with a movie playing on the wall from a projector. I think it was some foreign movie that I was strangely paying attention to. And… Yeah, Josh freaking Hutcherson was just sitting right next to me, like a kid; he was wearing a really dark blue, fine white striped sweater… I guess it’s a sweater, I stroked it like… By accident so I guess it’s a sweater ‘cause it’s made out of cotton… and a pair of slacks. Like all of us, he was sitting with his legs crossed or… Folded.
I glanced over at him and we were just casually smiling at each other. I don’t know what happened but I felt something stirring inside me. It was like a puppy just staring at me. A very, very, very cute puppy. With the cute big eyes and cute nose… And cute smile… And cute hair (or fur, I don’t care it’s a person I’m describing right now). It was like I’ve fallen in love in some relapse or something. I know how cheesy this really sounds but it happened.
I fixated my eyes back onto the wall where the movie was, apparently, still going on. Somehow we kinda leaned against each other’s sides and I found him—moments later—resting his head almost on my shoulder which, I am frankly admitting, was quite comforting. I don’t know why but… I don’t know. I don’t know anything; I’m just here to write about how my fantastically cheesy dream went, okay? He was all smiling at me as I looked down; we were seeing eye to eye, literally (okay, maybe just staring).
So, in the midst of the movie, some guy in baggy clothes came running up to the teacher who was leaning against the entrance door of the parish hall. He covered most of his face; I thought, “Oh, nosebleed.” I see the teacher nod a couple of times and luckily, just luckily, I caught a glimpse of the guy as he headed out to bask into the sunlight and probably on the way to wash off his nose. Perfectly long eyelashes, green-but-not-that-green eyes, flawless skin, very pointy nose and rosy lips; son of a gun, it’s David.
A few minutes later, word got spread around that David had this little contagious sickness like some cold or something. And it got to a few students and maybe was passing round. Just then, I hear Josh sneezing frequently. I got worried so I decided to check if he’s alright; and yes, I did set myself aside. I put my hand lightly on his shoulder, not around, just the shoulder closest to me.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked. He winced, made a smile and put his hands on my shoulders as a sign on reassurance, “I’m doing fine.”
“Are you sure?” I reached out to touch his face and stroking one side of his cheek with my thumb. He starts rubbing his hands on the sides on my arms and going, “Definitely.”
Then, there was this span of silence. His eyes are miraculously fixated on mine, blinking less. I scanned the freckles that stretch from his left cheek, across his nose bridge to his right cheek. I love freckles to be honest. Aside from David’s flawless skin, I like stupid freckles. I have some too, a lot and the last thing I want to do is cover them up. My palms held his godly jaw (yes, dear God, have you ever stared at them jaws). His grin came surfacing his face again.
By the end of the movie, we shifted on our places; still leaning on each other’s sides and sitting upright, hugging my legs together. Some random guy in a fancy suit come up to the podium, just standing there waiting for us to finally settle down. I see a console table crammed with awards; trophies to be exact. All unique in their own way. One that caught my eye was a trophy with a palette and brush that stood proudly on the very top. Below, a black porcelain block with golden words engraved into it said: Best Artist
Then another one that had a figure doing a walk. Another black porcelain block resting on its foot with golden words engraved: For the person who walked the longest distance
I wanted that trophy so bad because in my head, in my dream, I had a series of flashbacks of me just walking back and forth. I could easily win the trophy. I didn’t know why my desire to earn that trophy was stronger than getting the ‘Best Artist’ award, I mean, don’t I like art in my dream?
‘Dream’ me started to get real excited about the announcement of the winners of the trophies with pointless meanings into it—mostly. Behind the man was a row of books on the same console table that held the trophies. The spotlights hit on them and the man and nothing else was to be shined on.
He began to lift the microphone off the stand and cleared his throat, “I’d like all of you to know that, what we have here behind me are series of different books that are hand-picked by some of the people who are gathered here with us today.” He then gestures the books behind him with his free arm.
He tells us which selections of books are made by whom. I don’t remember the rest but the third last table on the left came and he said, “These books are Josh Hutcherson’s favourite books, so, if any of you wish to read them, do feel free to.”
I see a mixture of paperback books and one that was laid out in the open, on top of the messy hill of paperback books was Mockingjay: the last and third book of The Hunger Games Trilogy. It glistened under the radiant light.
He moves on to announce the winners of many pointless categories and sadly, I didn’t win any of the trophies I desired to have. Instead, I won the category for ‘the person who can stand longer than anyone else and prefers standing than sitting’. My trophy was a stupid figure just standing.
When the programme ended, the place was a mess; confetti that I didn’t even know got thrown into the air was on the floor. No one bothered to clean it up. I looked at the selection of books and stop at Josh’s pick. I stared at the Mockingjay book real long.
“Aren’t you gonna come?”
Speak of the devil. A medium-height silhouette was standing just at the entrance door.
***
So, when I woke up, I just went bonkers. And I was quite upset that my asshole boyfriend won’t show up in real life which basically makes him non-existent as 30th February. But, I was happy actually, it’s like he’s dating me in my head. To be honest, realizing it was a dream made me go like this: