I had a crazy detailed dream, and this is a scene from it.
Backstory: In the future, there is an Academy. Children are chosen based on the intelligence and genetic makeup of their parents. They are taken at three years old, and they are kept until they are almost thirty. They are trained to be completely and totally proficient in one subject. They are given no education on anything outside their subject. When they reach their final few years, a decision is made.
From each graduating class, each race, and each subject, a Perfect is chosen.
Those who are not chosen are told that they have been given lucrative jobs far away, and they are never seen by their friends or family again. They are quietly executed, so the population of Perfects is not contaminated. The government intends these Perfects to take over as a Universal Ruling Class.
Someone sent Jude (the protagonist...me, in the dream) files revealing this. She was horrified, and began telling the other students. Several escaped the Academy campus. The Leaders are trying to find Jude, and her companions Michael and Jessica.
While they ran, they came across a Journalist. He has never told them his name, but he is fascinated by their story. He interviews them for hours every day, and they live in his family’s house.
By the way, “Jess” is Jessica Simpson. “The Journalist” is
this guy.
I have no idea why.
Bizarre, huh?
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Jude knocks on the door. She can hear the shuffle of papers, and the Journalist loading a fresh sheet into the typewriter.
She sticks her head in the room. He looks up, surprised.
“Three already? Huh. Come in. Sit down.”
She sits on the couch. The rain is pelting the window, and the room is kind of dim. As if someone went over it with blue watercolor paint.
The journalist picks his typewriter up and moves it to the low table in front of the couch. He sits next to her.
On the table there is a thick stack of paper.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Jessica’s latest interview. I asked three questions and she talked inanities for over an hour.”
The Journalist’s attitude towards Jess has always surprised and amused Jude.
“She can play every instrument known to man.”
“I know.”
“She can do that thing where a glass shatters when she hits a high note.”
“I
know, Jude.”
“She wants to sleep with you so badly.”
The Journalist frowns. “Yeah. That’s obvious.”
“Do you know how many guys at the Academy would have killed to have her even willing to sit with them at tea? She shot them all down and she’s practically ripping your pants off!”
“I don’t like her.” he says simply.
“What, she’s not your type? Boobs too big for you? Into brunettes....or redheads? If you’d rather sleep with me, I have to tell you, the beard will have to go. Also...I’ll need to get drunk. Aaaand...you’ll need to start working out.”
That makes him laugh.
“Oh!” Jude’s eyes widen and she leans forward confidentially “Are you gay?”
“It has nothing to do with Jessica’s looks. She’s hot.”
There is a silence before he realizes the last part of her question may have been serious. He looks up to see if she’s waiting for an answer, which she is with a raised eyebrow,
“You think I’m gay?”
“Are you?”
The Journalist thinks, then smirks. “I’m not going to tell you. I will tell you that I don’t like Jess because she’s a narcissist."
Jude sighs. “I know she seems that way."
"She annoys the hell out of me.”
"She’s very sweet, really.”
“You’re loyal.”
“I guess I am.
He studies Jude. “She would have stayed.”
In response to her confused face, he ads “At the Academy. She would have stayed.”
“What? She was devastated when she saw the files!”
“If she had been one of the Perfect, she would have stayed.”
“How can you say that? No one I told stayed.”
The Journalist jerks his head towards the papers on the table. “I have pages where all she can talk about is how sad she was at not being chosen. She goes on and on about “Wasn’t I beautiful enough?” “Wasn’t I good enough at my instruments?” “What was wrong with my voice?”. Even if you and Michael had told her all about the horrible things that They did to Heukgisa and countless others, if she had been Perfect, she would have stayed.”
The Journalist misunderstands Jude’s silence. He assumes she is thinking about his tirade. “You’re very loyal.” he says again.
She isn’t thinking about Jessica anymore.
She is thinking about Heukgisa*. She does not like that the Journalist has said his name. She wishes she hadn’t ever told him.
Jude remembers Heukgisa’s face. How he would whisper the first ten thousand digits of Pi while they made love, trying to get her to see it as the poetry he did. She remembers him explaining to her that Math was a language, so she should be as expert in it as he was. She would laugh and say that the basic structure of words were like equations, so shouldn’t he then learn all the languages?
She remembers the phone call. “Chunsa**, they want me for the International Space Program! They want me to leave tonight for a place called Florida!”
That was the last time they spoke. She asked his Professors for an address, a phone number so she could reach him, call him, join him. They told her that because of the work he was doing, he was not allowed any visitors. Maybe after she finished her final year, after she had been chosen for work, she would be allowed to see him again. She cried for days.
Florida. It sounds like such a lyrical, pretty place. She wonders if it even exists. The Journalist will know.
“Journalist...” She says “Have you ever heard of Florida?”
He is quiet. He looks at her with surprise and then pity. “It’s in the United States, Jude. A Southern state.”
“Oh.” Jude looks out the window. She is sad.
The Journalist clacks away at his typewriter, recording every thought he has about this pathetic woman who is more than twenty, can speak every language the world has ever known and yet knows nothing else.
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*Korean: Knight
** Korean: Angel
