Dreaming of Tomorrow

The future belongs to those who believe

Blanket Burnout Kitty

High on comfy blankets, this tuxedo cat, street name “The Mongoose,” lies in a puddle of his own sick, depraved comfort. Half-derped with his arm out like he’s dreaming of adoring fans clamoring for him as he points and winks back, he’s a perfect example of avoiding that slippery slope. Blanket forts might seem harmless, but their comfort can pull you in like a trapdoor spider.

…Time for this week’s story…

Dreaming of Tomorrow

People often say they wish they could see the future. However, without being able to see the future, nobody knows what it is like to live with such a gift. Nobody, that is, except Priya. There were others in the world with her gift, but she did not know about them. Priya was only nine years old, after all.

Most people with the gift kept it to themselves because they knew how it sounded to others. Priya, however, would tell her family when she saw things coming. She would wake up from dreams having seen things and eagerly share the experience. While in most Indian families Priya would have caught someone’s attention with her gift, in her family, she was treated as the oddball.

“Mummy, I had a dream that the power went out for two days. Maybe we should buy some candles at the market?”

“Oh, Priya, you have such a vivid imagination. We have a few candles somewhere around here. We’ll be fine.”

The power went out that Friday night. Priya’s mother never bought candles. They were also unable to find their candles on the night the power went out. They stumbled around in the dark until the next day when they finally found the candles. When Priya pointed out that she had a dream predicting their situation, her mother was dismissive.

“Priya, it is impossible to see the future. Your dreams are your subconscious expressing its fears and desires. Somewhere in your mind you were afraid that the power would go out and we wouldn’t have candles. It was going to happen eventually.”

As an academic, Priya’s mother was very science-minded. That also meant she was completely closed off to possibilities that had not been prescribed to her. Seeing the future was an explicitly impossible event in the scientific world. Her mother already had an answer for what the visions were, no matter what Priya said or how accurate her predictions.

“Pappa, I had a dream that there was a car accident in front of our house! Everyone was standing by the street. It was a black car and a fancy white car.”

“That’s nice, dear, but it was just a dream. People with nice cars don’t drive around here.”

One week later, screeching tires and a loud crash drove Priya’s family and neighbors outside. Everyone stood by the street to watch the drivers argue and admire the fancy white car. When Priya tried to point out to her father that she had told him about this, he dismissed it as coincidence. He was a simple man who did not think about things very deeply and did not believe in, what he called, mumbo jumbo.

“Bhaiya, don’t! I had a dream you got in trouble trying to steal candies,” Priya told her older brother when he shared his plan to steal candy from the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” her brother said. As Priya foresaw, he got caught. He later claimed that she jinxed him by telling him he would be caught.

Priya thought that eventually, they would catch on that all her predictions were right. However, as time went on, prediction after prediction, her family refused to see. Then came a night that Priya had a dream like no other. She knew it was of the future, and yet it seemed so much like a dream, she wasn’t sure if she could believe it herself.

In Priya’s dream, aliens descended from the skies. There was great tension at first, but when they made contact with various world leaders, tensions settled. The date of their arrival was everywhere, so Priya knew when it was coming. She marked it on the calendar, as it was only a few weeks away. Still, she would laugh about it when she saw it there. At some point, her mother noticed and inquired about it over dinner.

“Priya, why does it say on the calendar that aliens are going to arrive in two weeks?”

“Because, I had a dream that aliens are going to show up that day. Everyone is going to be scared and then they’re going to talk to our leaders and then everything is going to be okay.”

“That’s very funny, Priya, but the calendar is for important things,” her father said.

“You don’t think aliens showing up is important?”

“Well, yes, if it really happens, it is important, but you can’t use the calendar like this.”

“Okay, fine. I just didn’t know how to tell you guys so I wrote it on the calendar. Can we leave it there in case it really happens?”

“In case it really happens,” her parents snickered.

“Okay, sweetie, you can leave it if it makes you happy,” her mother decreed.

“Thank you,” Priya said, truly grateful she wasn’t forced to erase it. When aliens landed, she could point to it and show them that she indeed knew it was coming and can see the future. Other times they had claimed she orchestrated events, but that was not a possible excuse this time. Finally, her family would believe her.

The day came and aliens descended upon planet Earth. There was widespread panic for most of the day. Once the aliens landed and spoke with leaders of Earth from around the world, everyone relaxed. Priya spent the day reminding her family that she told them aliens were coming on that day. She was one of the few people excited for their arrival.

Her family, however, claimed it was a coincidence that aliens actually landed on a day that lined up with her little joke. At that point, Priya gave up. She knew when her brother was going to break his leg, when her father would be fired, when her mother was going to be humiliated in front of all her coworkers, and she said nothing. The only thing she lost was the feeling of being put down after trying to help. That was something she was happy to live without.