Dream Journal Ultimate
Date: 12/28/2025
By amandalyle
I seem to have travelled back in time. My daughter sits beside me in the back of a battered old car, legs too short for the seat, socks mismatched, no older than six. Liz is driving. Liz — who in waking life would rather be caught shopping in Lidl than be seen in anything without a white paint job and a personalised number plate — now pilots this rusted relic like we’ve got nothing to lose. And maybe we don’t. We are young. Carefree. We don’t care about appearances, only momentum. Only the next turn in the road, the next adventure. Phoebe is telling me about a nightmare she keeps having. A dark figure that comes into her room at night. It doesn’t speak. It just stands there, watching. “That would make an awesome story,” I think, immediately ashamed of myself for filing away my child’s fear like creative currency. I pull her closer anyway. Mother first. Writer second. Liar always. We arrive at a vast manor house, all pale stone and long-held silence. We abandon the car and walk through fields that feel tastefully curated — too green, too deliberate — like someone has styled it for the front page of Country Life magazine. Halfway across, a film crew materialises from nowhere. Cameras. Boom mics. Purpose. Phoebe is gone now. No explanation. Just… written out of the script. I’m surrounded by strangers instead. Loud ones. Reckless ones. People fizzing with the sort of confidence that comes from never doubting your place in the world. I have an earpiece in because of course I do. Of course this is scripted. “And you’re up,” a voice bellows. “This is unbelievable,” I say. Cue EMF’s Unbelievable blasting from nowhere, loud and smug. We sprint towards an outdoor swimming pool the size of a small lake. Everyone strips naked without hesitation, bodies flung into the sun like worshippers of the light. I hesitate for half a beat too long, then I follow. I can do this. I can be this. I catch my reflection in a vast glass window and stop dead. My body looks wrong. Not just naked — hideously wrong. Fat. Lumpy. Grotesque. Like I’m wearing someone else’s skin over my own and it doesn’t sit right at the seams. A borrowed body. An ill-fitting costume. Panic rises — hot, immediate, unrelenting. I yank on a swimsuit from nowhere, and everything sucks back into place like a vacuum-sealed bag. Tightened. Contained. Presentable. Somehow… whole. “That’s better,” I think, and hate myself for meaning it. I jump into the pool. Laughter. Chaos. Waterbombs flying. Everyone alive, fearless, unafraid. I try to join in, but a cold thread of dread winds tighter with every splash. Something pulls my gaze downwards. In the far corner of the pool, at the bottom, there’s a dark shape. It could be a dead dog. It could be a body. It could be nothing. It is not nothing. “There’s something down there,” I tell a man treading water beside me. “Can you see it?” He glances, shrugs, and swims away like madness is contagious and I’ve coughed directly in his mouth. I want to be carefree. I want to stay in the water. But the shape grows heavier in my mind, darker, denser, until it eclipses everything else. “Get out!” I shout. “It’s probably just toxic mould,” someone says. Just. I grab a high-powered hose and blast the pool. People go flying, limbs everywhere, joy ripped from their hands mid-laugh. They are furious. Offended. Outraged by my concern. “You always ruin the fun,” someone snaps. It hurts. Of course it does. But I keep going. The hose bucks, wild now, feral. It hits everyone — even a small boy and his father, who looks capable of turning me inside out before anyone can stop him. I drop the hose. I run. Over hills, through woods, tearing through bushes until I emerge at a pagan festival that looks like it’s already failed. Eight people, max. All staring at me like I’ve crawled out of the earth. “Congratulations!” Sara Cox beams, microphone in hand, camera crew hovering. “You’ve joined the festival.” “This wasn’t planned,” I say, covered in leaves, hair nesting actual wildlife. “Well, we’re glad you’re here,” she says desperately. “So many great bands.” There are none. A conservatory beckons — glass walls, soft lighting, canapés floating by on silver trays. Smooth jazz dances with my eardrums. Everyone inside smells of wealth and polished silver. “Darling!” Sophie Hermann calls. Of course it’s her. The Made in Chelsea Duchess herself. “Come see my pussy.” Pussy? My cheeks burn a deeper shade of awkward. “Come, come,” she says, already turning away. I follow, without thinking, like a curious cat who knows better than to chase its own tail. And speaking of pussies — Spätzle is sprawled in a cat-sized hammock, legs akimbo, balls unapologetically on display, like the King of Sheba reclining after a long reign. Completely unbothered. Majestic, in his own way. I smile. He reminds me of my own cat, Monkey. Same ginger-and-white fur. Same don’t-give-a-monkey attitude towards the world and everyone in it. “Isn’t he just the cutest damn strudel in zee world?” Sophie says. “He’s fairly adorable,” I reply. “Not quite as cute as my cat, Monkey.” She arches a frozen brow. I think. Too much Botox to say for sure. Spätzle stretches, spreads his toes — that impossibly charming thing cats do with their tiny, perfect little toes — and that’s it. I’m done for. I fall in love immediately. We coo over him together, feeding him grapes straight from the vine, while he absorbs the attention like he was bred for nothing else. “He’s my spoilt puss,” Sophie babbles proudly. “Too fucking right,” I say. And then a few of my work colleagues pile in — loud, misplaced, already halfway gone. My stomach somersaults. I was meant to go to the Christmas works do. Told them I would. Then chickened out at the last minute with some thin excuse about being ill. Bedridden. As if that version of me ever stays put. And here I am, crouched in a conservatory, stroking Sophie Hermann’s pussy. I duck behind Spätzle’s hammock and pray they don’t see me. They do. They always bloody do. “Amanda!” Jordan says. “You made it out.” I nod. Smile. My cheeks flush —embarrassment, irritation, something else I don’t have a name for. “Wanna tinny?” he asks, already rolling one across the floor, like I’ve answered with my eyes. The can bumps against my foot. I glance up and catch Sophie’s frozen disdain. Scorned by the Herminator herself. We’d built a rapport, so I thought. Bonded over cats. A shared, unspoken understanding. And now it’s ruptured by a warm can of lager and the people I never quite leave behind. “I guess I’ll be seeing you,” she says, words frosted in ice. I pick up the tin and chug it down. If you can’t beat them, join them. Right? It tastes vile. Like poverty. Like class. Like standing in the narrow, uncomfortable space between worlds, and realising I don’t fully belong to either. And then — I see it. In the corner of the room, where the light thins. Not reflected. Not distorted. Just there. A dark figure. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t need to. It stands with the patience of something that knows it won’t be chased away. No one else notices. Conversation carries on. Music croons. Glasses clink. My legs weaken. My breath shortens. I tell myself this is panic. Fatigue. Too much pretending. I squeeze my eyes shut. Just blink, I think. Reset. I open them again. It’s still there. Uninvited. Silent. Lingering at the edge of my vision — not threatening, not urgent — just waiting. As if it knows I’ll try to disappear long before it ever does.