“Wake Up, Space Cadet”

Date: 11/28/2025

I really wish the dream gods would get their act together. Of all the infinite universes they could drop me into — enchanted forests, neon cityscapes, a beach made entirely of Maltesers — they’ve dragged me back to the dreaded depot. I’m convinced I must’ve died in some mid-point reincarnation and got stuck respawning here forever, like a broken angel with a barcoded wing. Emily is “in charge” today — using that term as loosely as the screws clearly rattling around her skull. She sits slumped on a plastic chair, staring vacantly into the near-distance, that strange vacant place you go when all your ambition has died but your body forgot to follow. “Emily?” I wave my hand in front of her glazed eyes. Nothing. Not even a twitch. I’ve seen potatoes with more cognitive activity. Fine. I resort to stationary warfare. I scribble a note — because apparently words spoken aloud do nothing in this dream universe — and hand it to her. She scrunches it into a ball with the enthusiasm of someone crushing my hopes and dreams, then tosses it on the floor. “Well,” I mutter, “Royal Mail sure does pick them.” Ryan marches over next, chest puffed out like he’s expecting applause for existing. “I was on your round yesterday,” he declares. I smile painfully. “Did you deliver all the parcels?” His face lights up as if I’ve set him up for the world’s greatest punchline. “Yeah… delivered them into a York.” He laughs at his own joke so hard I fear he may sprain something. Then he gestures to a mountain of parcels teetering so high they should come with sherpas. “Oh” I say, “Just a small peak to scale before lunch.” Apparently, I’m working with a newbie today. “Newbie” meaning “ancient soul clinging to life by the frayed cuff of her cardigan.” She’s hunched on a chair, mumbling to herself like she’s narrating the director’s commentary of her own breakdown. “Hi, I’m Amanda,” I offer. She ignores my name entirely. “How are your parents?” she asks. “Uh… Mum’s fine. Dad’s been dead fifteen years.” She nods solemnly, waits exactly three seconds, then asks again. Oh. Brilliant. Alzheimer's-on-wheels. “Dad died fifteen years ago,” I repeat, sharper this time. Emily suddenly wakes from her fugue state and joins her, and they start chatting like survivors of the same long-term psychological experiment. I hover awkwardly at the edge like a spare nipple. Fuctional? Yes. Wanted? No. “I love whippets,” the newbie sighs. “Me too.” I attempt. “I love their skinny little legs—“ Both twist to glare at me as if I’ve admitted to kicking orphans. They turn back and immediately change the subject. As they gossip, three lads crawl past on all fours like deranged zoo exhibits. Their eyes are wild, pupils huge, faces slack. They look like someone spiked their water with LSD and delusional’s louder, more obnoxious cousin. One is making actual seal noises — “ora, ora” — slapping his arms like flippers as though auditioning for Blue Planet. Another bounds up to me, like a deranged dog and sticks his nose between my legs. I shove him away with a horrified yelp. But of course, Emily and the newbie don’t notice. Managers and elders: useless in dreams and real life alike. “Typical.” I sigh. Hours pass — maybe eight, maybe infinity. I’m pushing my HCT trolley, which has begun breeding parcels like it’s in heat. Every time I lift the lid, a fresh litter of rage-inducing cardboard offspring appears. I It’s dark outside now. My patience and sanity clocked off hours ago and have gone home to eat biscuits, in their pyjamas, without me. I push the trolley into a shopping mall. Christmas shoppers migrate in frantic flocks. They slam into me, cut me off, step in my way. I fantasise — just briefly — about turning the trolley into a weapon of mass destruction and ramming it straight into someone’s arse. That’s when I see him. Dreadlocks. HMV. Ed. “Ed!” I call. He tries to run. Of course he does. Then he does that soft-eyed pity look people save for pigeons with missing toes. “Hey Amanda, I really need to get going. There’s … somewhere I need to be.” There always is. People have an uncanny knack for being urgently unavailable when they spot me. I snap. I’m done with being ignored. Done with being the dream’s unpaid intern. Done with being sidelined in my own dream. So, of course, the universe punishes me for my rebellion by dropping me straight into — — A sex party. Fantastic. My husband, Mat, is sprawled on a sofa grinning like the Cheshire Cat after a ketamine binge. We are in a seedy red-lit dungeon filled with whips, chains and muffled shrieks. Sweaty bodies do things to other sweaty bodies that would get banned from reality if anyone saw. “Uh — I didn’t sign up for this,” I mutter. “Threesome,” he says, beaming. “It’s always been my ambition.” Ambition. As though he’s climbing Kilimanjaro and not trying to get his leg over lube-loving randoms. Before I can escape, a couple approaches. Ed. And his aggressively pierced girlfriend. The universe is mocking me with great gusto now. Ed starts stripping. “No. No-no-no-no,” I groan — but he ignores me. His skinny body glimmers under the seedy lights like a wet breadstick. Legs of a whippet. Irony is alive and well. “Mat… I’ve got to go home and feed Monkey.” I blurt, which is universal code for I will literally do anything except this. Ed’s girlfriend glares like I’ve yanked out every one of her piercings with my teeth. “Another time maybe,” I say, already edging towards the door. The dungeon fades like a faulty dimmer switch. Suddenly I’m scaling a mountain in Arctic blizzards. Wind claws at my jacket. My hands are frozen; my breath feels like it’s crystallising in my chest. Mat whines behind me like an asthmatic accordion. “Almost there!” I shout. Step after painful step, I climb — until I reach the top and realise the frightening truth: The snow … isn’t snow. The mountain… isn’t a mountain. It’s parcels. A mountain of parcels. Parcels towering into the clouds. It rumbles. Shakes. It collapses. We fall. Boxes burst around me like cardboard grenades. I hit the depot floor. Fluorescent lights buzz. My heartbeat stutters. Emily hovers over me, waving her hands. “Hello? Space cadet? Anyone home?” I sit up. The floor is a disaster zone: parcels strewn everywhere. Mat is gone. Vanished. Everyone stares at me in the way people stare at car crashes they pretend not to enjoy. My cheeks burn. And then — I see him. A man sitting quietly in the corner. Calm. Still. Unmistakable. My father. He is holding a small, crushed scrap of paper. The note. My note. My heart plummets into my shoes. He smooths the note — the one Emily crushed earlier — unfolding the creases with a tenderness that twists something inside me. “Dad?” I breathe. He lifts his eyes to mine — soft, sad, and knowing — before reading the two words written there. “Wake up.” And just like that, he’s gone. All that remains is the echo of his voice, the cold thrum of the depot, and the quiet, uncomfortable certainty that the only thing I’ve been asleep to all this time… is my own life. Maybe, in the end, it’s finally time to wake up and smell the cardboard.