Today I found myself in a scene that made my heart flutter so much.
He and I were sitting next to each other on chairs, talking. Then he suddenly lay down with his head on my lap. I was a little surprised, but I was attracted to him, so I let him.
A few seconds later, he realized something wasn’t quite right. He sat back up and asked, “Is it okay if I do this?” I nodded, and he lay down again.
But a few seconds after that, I also realized it wasn’t okay. I quickly lifted his head and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. We can continue after the show ends, but not on the show, because I’m part of the crew.” Then I stood up, turned my back, and walked away, cupping both cheeks in my hands. It felt as though it took all my strength. I was so upset I nearly cried.
Before I woke up, I realized there was a choice that could let us continue this relationship: he could volunteer to leave the show. Whether he made that choice first and I only realized it in response, or whether the realization came from me thinking, “How could our relationship continue?”… I don’t know.
(But why wasn’t I thinking, “I’ll leave the crew and continue this relationship”? That definitely wouldn’t work! As for why, I’ll leave that to you reading this—if you’re curious, pause for a few seconds and think about it~
Oh, right. The setup in the dream was that I’d somehow joined the crew of a dating show with both LGBTQ and straight participants, as the only support staff member brought in at the last minute. Then he appeared as a contestant, and wow, he was so good-looking! I was very drawn to him. We did have some interactions at the start, and later we did something together that made him fall for me, too (let’s assume for now that a little gesture like “resting your head on someone’s lap” comes from being attracted to them)… The dream didn’t let me experience every part clearly, or maybe I couldn’t remember any of it after waking… Anyway, I’m not sure either. I just felt that this dream! Was so strange & wonderful. (Oh, if you keep reading, I’ll bring up something else that makes all that “strange & wonderful” feeling vanish! 🌚
Sure enough, when it comes to people’s looks, my pickiness… is just as consistent. And I know I’ve always been quick to like good-looking people before knowing anything else about them (but if you ask why they’re good-looking… I don’t think I could answer. I’m the kind of person who has to look up what a jawbone even is and where it’s located!). But I also know that if someone I don’t know well has the looks but doesn’t otherwise meet my inner standards, I just treat them as a passerby. I’ll take an extra look, but I won’t turn back. With the contestant who acted that way in that little scene, though, the details really! Made my heart flutter—and not only the me in the dream.
Some other contestants who were there witnessed the scene, too. One seemed to like me, though I wasn’t as drawn to him. He saw those conversations, those details, and my eventual departure. He seemed surprised by my reaction?
Right now, I’m still curious about what we were talking about then. Sadly, I will never know where that dream would have gone.
Perhaps there is no such thing as an ending, and it is always ongoing. Just as even when a life reaches its endpoint, its journey isn’t over yet.
I remembered a sentence I wrote on WeChat Moments long ago: “Waking is parachuting out of a window in a dream.”
There is a source for that quote; the version on Moments just added the image of a window.
The line it came from says, “Waking up is a parachute jump out of the dream.” The original is “Uppvaknandet är ett fallskärmshopp från drömmen”.
Ah… had I been reading Tranströmer then (whose name also has another Chinese transliteration)? Maybe.
So why did I add the word “window”? I don’t know. Looking back, though, I’ve always been quite fascinated by the world inside windows (I also notice and photograph the worlds inside real windows), including the me inside the window.
Hehe! That last sentence has a double meaning! 👻
Still haven’t figured it out? That’s okay, I’ll have fun with myself!
Right? Inside the window and outside it, everything is still ongoing~
P.S. Finally! Time for the last reveal: the thing that breaks all that “strange & wonderful” feeling is, how could he act like that as a contestant on a dating show? Especially with other contestants there? And of course, as a crew member, my behavior was absolutely, absolutely a problem, too! But, but—this was a dream, a dream! Can we please not try to pick it apart in quite so much detail! Okay, done. 🫡