Chapter 3: History
January 16, 2007
It has been a while since I last had a dream. The thing is that after I woke up from my last dream, I thought Lisa had been saved. I was wrong of course; she was still dead. She had been saved because in my dream, the ambulance got there in time and did some magical thing that just cured her. That didn’t happen in real life though, which just pissed me off. The feeling itself of waking up with hopes of the dream being real, just drove me crazy. I got so pissed that I didn’t want to dream ever again; which is probably why it took me so long to dream again. Thankfully though, last night I had a dream and I am glad I did.
Like you would expect by now, in order to understand my dream, we have to review my events during the day. I really don’t know if this is the way it works for everybody, but that is how it works for me. So from now on I will stop saying that we have to review the events from the day and it will be assumed that we have to do that to begin with. If anything changes, that the dream has nothing to do with the events of the day, I will note it.
It all started as a typical day of school once again, they are typically boring, but ever since the Lisa incident, everything has been quiet in school, people barely talk to me; it is not like they did before, but now it is worse somehow. I wasn’t really sure how but it simply was. It felt like everyone blamed me for her death, or they felt sorry for me…or maybe both? I don’t know and to be honest, I really couldn’t care less.
Anyway, I went directly into my first class, History. Wow! Exciting right? Yeah, not really, it has been the most boring class in all history, no pun intended, and it will always be. At least that is exactly what went through my mind when I went into class that day, but things changed in my dream…I will explain that later on.
Unfortunately for you and me I have to explain what went inside the classroom in order to understand the dream. Mike was already there when I went in.
“How are you holding up?” Mike said. That is what he asks me when he sees me now. No ‘what is up’ or ‘hey’ no, it is always ‘how are you holding up?’
“Same.” I said. Only answer I can come up with, really. And what I meant with “same” was ‘not so good, wishing I could go back in time to change some stuff.’ And Mike already knew this.
“Oh, that bad, huh?” He replied knowing what it meant. All I did was nod along.
Before we knew it the class began. At first I really didn’t understand what the teacher was saying. To be honest it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand what she was saying; I just saw her lips moving without words really coming out of them, because my mind was somewhere else. She said some keywords that made me pay attention.
“If it wasn’t because of the money…” that right there, I just stopped thinking in whatever it was I was thinking and I looked right into her and I couldn’t hear anything else but what she was saying “…many advances would have been achieved already. We would have a base on the moon; maybe we would have a base on Mars or something. But since it is too expensive, we haven’t been able to achieve such things.”
At the moment this words didn’t seem important. I mean yeah, it was interesting and at the same time depressing to know that we hadn’t achieved a lot of things because we didn’t have enough money. I didn’t really understand why, if the government is the one that controls the money, why don’t they just make more of it or whatever. Of course, it was way more complicated than that and I didn’t really care much for it.
The rest of the day isn’t really important. I went through day without really caring about the rest of the classes. I was too depressed and too interested in other things to really care about them. At least for this few days I didn’t. Anyway, I went back home after all the classes were over and I had some dinner with my family. We really didn’t talk much. They just asked me how school was, I answered it was okay, they asked if I had any new grades to report, I said I didn’t, and that was pretty much all we talked about. Then my parents got into a big fight because my mother wanted to buy something for the family room but my father fought back saying we didn’t have the money and so on and so forth. Money just seems to be the source of all our problems doesn’t it?
I just ignored their usual fight and went straight to my room. I went into the computer for a little while. I didn’t have many people to chat with though; they were all out or something, or studying. I really don’t know. I just checked my emails and went to sleep. To my surprise though, I had a dream. Yes, it still surprises me, to this very day that I can dream.
This dream started a little bit different from the other dreams since when the dream started, or at least from what I recall to be the beginning of the dream, I was already in school. Contrary to my real life school scenario, everyone in the dream was happy and cheerful. Lisa looked outstandingly beautiful and if I hadn’t been there when she fell, I wouldn’t have known she had opened her forehead up.
“Hey you.” Lisa said in a flirtatious way.
“Hey.” I said smiling back.
“How are you?” Lisa said.
“Hey buddy!” Mike said jumping from my behind before I could reply to Lisa’s question. She just stood there smiling.
“Whoa, take it easy tiger. You are going to break my back or something.” I said in a joking manner. “Don’t worry, if that happens, we will just fix it back up.” Mike said laughing and we all laughed alongside him. I don’t know if we laughed because it was actually funny or just because we felt sorry for him.
“Like that is not going to hurt.” I replied.
“Oh it does, it hurts like a bitch.” Mike said while stretching his back. “But it doesn’t kill you.”
“That’s good then, I guess.” I replied while the bell rang.
“We better get to class or else we will be late.” Lisa said. I was getting the feeling she was the responsible type. Apparently everyone around me was because everyone just rushed into their respective classrooms, in an orderly manner of course.
“History!” Mike said with excitement. “Don’t you love that class?”
“You kidding me? I hate it.” I said while walking towards the classroom.
“You serious?” Lisa said as we went inside. I noticed that the classroom was no typical classroom at all. For some reason the sits were positioned in a circle around a big table that was sitting in the middle. I found it odd and at the same time interesting, but at the moment I really didn’t pay much attention to it. You know, teachers do this kind of stuff sometimes for special occasions.
“What are you talking about man? This class is one of the best ones, if not the best.” Mike said as we sat down. I don’t know how I didn’t notice within the dream that I was dreaming because to hear Mike say that about History class was just jaw dropping to say the least. Now that I realize, I don’t know how I didn’t notice that it was a dream when I saw Lisa either. Oh well, I guess you aren’t suppose to know that you are in a dream once you are in the dream, right?
“Good morning classroom.” A young woman said while walking inside the room, she went through the sits and stood besides the table.
“Good morning Ms. Belaware.” Everyone said, except for me of course, while she was checking something besides the table. I couldn’t quite get a glance of it.
“Alright so only Tommy is missing. Anyone knows what is wrong with him?” Ms. Belaware said. Apparently she was checking the attendance on the table. How she checked it without asking names though? I am not sure. I am guessing she used the whole DNA thing like the ambulance did to know our location.
“He stayed all night last night working on his new project and was too tired to come over today. I will take notes for him and give them to him this afternoon.” A young girl with beautiful eyes said.
“Well thank you Melanie. I am sure he will appreciate that. Let him know that we are eager to see his new project.” Ms. Belaware said. I couldn’t understand how she wasn’t mad at the fact that a boy just missed class becau
se he stayed up all night working on some project. Not only that but she was actually interested in hearing about this so-called project. I don’t know, maybe he is the next Einstein or something, but still. Little bit of responsibility wouldn’t be bad.
The teacher turned the table on. Yes, she turned the table on. A little holographic city showed up in the middle of it. My jaw almost dropped to the ground when I saw that thing. I couldn’t believe my eyes and no wonder I couldn’t, it was all a dream. Mike noticed my astonishment and obviously he reacted to it.
“You alright mate? You seem a little bit surprised there.” Mike said but I noticed that for some reason I shouldn’t be so surprised, so I came up with a little white lie.
“No. Well yeah a little bit. I am always surprised and astonished when she turns that thing on.” I said, trying to cover my tracks.
“No you are not.” Mike said noticing my white lie. What a smartass, he pays attention to every single detail, unlike me. I didn’t know what to reply to that, but thank God Ms. Belaware saved me.
“Everything okay over there?” Ms. Belaware said talking to us. “Mike? Robert?”
“Everything is alright ma’am. Sorry.” Mike said.
“No worries.” Ms. Belaware replied. “Anyway, let’s get started shall we?” She continued, with a big smile on her face. Everyone seemed pretty excited too.
The screen changed to the moon and a rocket going towards it. It was a like a little video, but it paused when the rocket reached the moon. All we could see was a rocket in the moon.
“Can anyone name this event?” Ms. Belaware asked.
“I know that is the moon, I don’t understand why there is no base on it though.” A kid said.
“That’s Apollo eleven, first manned moon landing.” I said.
“Good job, Robert.” Ms. Belaware said. “Eric, to clarify your doubt, this was Apollo eleven as Robert said correctly. It was the first time humanity reached the moon.” Everyone was amazed by this fact and for a moment I couldn’t understand why.
“When was this?” another kid asked.
“July twentieth, nineteen-sixty-nine. Hundreds of years ago.” Ms. Belaware said. I wasn’t sure if I heard correctly, so yes, I asked.
“Hundreds of years ago, ma’am?” I asked.
“Correct Robert. Nineteen sixty-nine.” She replied. So I had only one question in mind, what year was it? I hesitated and before I could ask it, it was too late. She had carried on. “But there was a problem. People said they hadn’t really landed in that moment as the United States claimed they did.”
“Why not?” Lisa asked. “Why would someone lie about such a thing? What could they gain?”
“I am glad you asked Lisa. By the time, there was a race between continents of who was going to get there first. It was mostly between Russia and the United States. So people claimed the United States hoaxed this event in order to let Russia believe that they had won the race.” Ms. Belaware explained. I was surprised no one knew this; almost every kid my age knew that.
“Was there any proof? Could they prove that it was actually a hoax?” Mike asked.
“No. To this date no one has been able to prove whether it was actually a hoax or a real flight. But many based their theory on the fact that only a few more missions landed on the moon and no one else did until many years afterwards.” Ms. Belaware continued.
“Why did it take them so long to return?” a kid asked.
“Because it cost them too much money and it was unnecessary. They couldn’t really gain anything from going to the moon.” Ms. Belaware explained. What I found interesting though, is that when she said ‘money’ everyone had a face of ‘what the heck she just said’.
“Money? What is that?” A kid asked. I still couldn’t understand how they didn’t know what money was.
“Money. Well how do I explain this to you guys? Well, back in the day, people used this thing they called money in order to gain something. Let’s say they wanted a new shirt, they exchanged this shirt for what they called money. People actually worked to gain money and the more money you had, the better way you lived, at least when it comes to owning material stuff, of course. That is why so many people starved for hunger and that is why so many people used to have better houses than others, etc etc. Because money stopped them from being able to get what they wanted and people simply worked for the money and not for the love of it.” Ms. Belaware explained. Everyone was surprised at this answer, especially me. I had finally understood why I didn’t need to pay for the movie theater in the other dream. I understood why no one knew what this word meant. Apparently money is something that doesn’t exist here, money is something that is no longer available, no longer needed. The realization of this just placed a big smile in my face.
“You seem happy about that Robert.” Mike said. Again, noticing everything. I just looked at him, placed my hands behind my head and replied:
“Yeah, actually I am. It is just that…History is so fascinating, don’t you think?”
“Now that we don’t have this money thing, it is no longer an impediment. Ever since then technology has advanced drastically. People thought that the times from the nineteen hundreds to the year two-thousand were of great advancements.” Ms. Belaware said as everyone had a good laugh, even herself. “But they just didn’t know what the limits were. Then again, we haven’t reached our limits yet ourselves. We keep advancing technologically every single day to such a ratio that it is still outstanding.”
I was starting to get curious. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. So this time I didn’t hesitate and I raised my hand. “Ma’am, sorry to interrupt.” I said while lowering my hand.
“Yes, Robert?” Ms. Belaware asked.
“In what year are we?” I asked. Everyone looked at me really funny, even she did as well.
“Well that is a weird question. But we are in the year…” Ms. Belaware said but just as she was about to say the year, I woke up. I tried to go back to sleep, to see if I could continue the dream where I had left it, but it didn’t work. I only got a few minutes of more sleep but with no dream. I guess I will just have to wait until I dream again.