I was chasing someone through a water ride at an amusement park. At some point, I remove my shoes. By the time we get to the street, I start feeling pain in my feet and I give up on the chase returning to get my shoes.

I walk halfway up a hill to meet my boyfriend. We share a brief conversation, agreeing to meet the next day. He kisses my forehead and we part ways.

I’m walking home and one of my exes tries hitting on me. I’m just like “okay bye now” and keep walking home.

The next morning, my mom is fussing over my appearance because she knows it’s our anniversary. In the dream, I totally forgot. I silently berate myself, How could I have forgotten… and almost realize that I’m only dreaming. But the pieces repel each other and I continue to meet him in the dream world.

We meet in the amusement park from earlier, this one part of it is a huge room built like one of Escher’s creations. Even gravity was altered to fit it. It was beautiful. I could walk up the stairs to the ceiling and walk the ceiling back down. 

We met eyes, but didn’t speak. Like we were spies and part of me was just watching the dream. Through a window to outside the Escher room, I spot two older women, armed, with faces like they’re about to kill. 

So my boyfriend takes a seat near one of the windows, only slightly out of view of the women, and I take a seat behind a wall, able to sneak peeks at them. 

I’m not quite sure what happens after that. Chaos, violence, screaming guests stampeding out the exits, a nice little battle in the world of Escher…

But by the end of it all, neither of us remember anything. He and I are like little kids sitting at the back of a pickup truck. A old man, dressed like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, hands each of us a fluffy dog to keep. He tells us that a dog is good company to keep in the wake of something traumatizing.

And so little Bretney and little John ride home like little children with new pet dogs and a fresh slate of memory.

This has to be good somehow.