There were racks of clothes, each one more comfortable than the one before, each one perfectly in her size and ready to wear the moment she slipped it off the hanger. So many comfy clothes, that she couldn’t choose even a few to try on to check the style.
There were plates of food, each one more her favorite than the one before, each one perfectly seasoned according to her liking and ready to eat the moment she chose a plate. So many flavorful dishes, that she couldn’t choose even a few to sample as an appetizer.
There were shelves of pillows, each one more pleasant than the one before, each one perfectly shaped to fit in all the places she liked to keep pillows and ready to be held or snuggled against the moment she made a choice. So many huggable pillows, that she couldn’t choose even a few to hold on to for now.
And so it went as Melissa explored the store more and more. Each aisle seemed unending until the moment she became bored with what was being offered. Upon the onset of boredom, the aisle ended and she was forced to turn away if she wanted to continue browsing.
Which she very much did. Here was her chance to break away from the extreme austerity that Aunt Helen had forced on her. Here was her chance to buy whatever she wanted in whatever quantities or qualities that would satisfy her. Here was her chance to have her every desire fulfilled and not worry once about how much it would cost her. She would never run out of money now.
If only she could make a decision.
For all the delights that the store held for her, she had yet to choose anything. And as fast as she saw something new, what she had seen had slipped far behind her in the past. She couldn’t even bring herself to stand still long enough to examine anything thoroughly, much less to turn to go back to something she had seen before.
There was no time to think anything through. Instead, the only time to take was now. The only time to feel was now. The only time to eat was now. The only time to live was now. Right now, this moment, Melissa has to choose because the only thing her money cannot buy her is time.
And time was running out.
Faster and faster, Melissa scanned the shelves. She was afraid that the moment she made a choice, any choice, that everything else in the store would vanish and she would have only the one thing she touched. So, she ran down the aisles, careful to keep her hands away from the shelves, careful to not run so reckless that she would trip and fall into the merchandise, careful to not make an accidental choice.
Watches and potstickers and purses and lipstick and movie tickets and sushi and knick-knacks and artist sets and boba tea and house slippers and …
Melissa fell to her knees in the middle of it all, wailing. “I CAN’T CHOOSE! I WANT IT ALL BUT I CAN’T CHOOSE! I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TELL ME WHAT TO CHOOSE!” A sob cracked her voice forcing her to struggle to regain her breath. “I… I just want someone… to tell me what I’m supposed to want. It’s too much and I don’t know how… I don’t know how to get what I want. I don’t know how to know what I want.”
She heard a soft tink off to one side, a sound that reminded her of tea parties and teddy bears. She looked over at the sound and saw in the middle of the Store That Offers Everything was the play table and chairs from her childhood. There was even a large teddy bear in one chair and a tea service set already placed for her to play with.
She crawled over to it, forgetting all about the shelves of merchandise looming over her and surrounding the small play area. She started to reach for the closest empty chair, but when she saw her hand, she realized something was very wrong.
“I’m a grown up. I don’t have these chairs anymore. Aunt Helen…”
She pulled back her hand and sat knock-kneed on the cold surface just away from the play area rug. Great heaves of breaths became great shudders of silent crying.
“I want… I want things to be like they were before you left, Papá. But you’re gone, and the play set is gone, and my childhood is gone, and there is nothing in this make-believe store that is going to make up for that. Even if I did buy one of everything in the world, I still would not get you back.”
She folded over onto whatever surface was the ground under her and wept.
From the table, a gentle voice came to her. “What do you want, Melissa? What do you want for yourself?”
The voice sounded like Rebecca in tone and timbre, and yet, carried almost nothing of the warmth she had come to expect from the Rebecca that she knew personally. It was the last tell Melissa needed to recognize that she was dreaming.
Melissa sat up, more tired than angry. She was a little bit relieved to see one of the tarot judges present, but also a little bit annoyed.
“Lisa wants a shag, a fuck, a happy-fun-time, just like Lisa used to have before Lisa’s mommy came back from the fucking dead and ruined everything!”
Melissa’s attention snapped to the tarot judge sitting where the large teddy bear had been before. The judge wore Melissa’s face and used Melissa’s voice, but the sound felt as hollow as Melissa’s patience. As she stared, the judge wearing her face turned in the chair and lifted their robed feet to rest them on the discarded teddy bear.
Melissa’s rage flared immediately, but she did not act. Instead, she ground her fists into her thighs and sought to use her new lucidity to center herself before speaking.
“What… What do you want? No, wait, you don’t want anything, either of you. What am I missing?” She pulled her gaze from the judges and inspected everything around her anew.
The endless shelves with their endless varieties of stuff for sale remained present. Though she could only see a dozen feet or so down the aisles that all now intersected on the play area, she knew beyond them was a labyrinth that could never be mapped or navigated.
“If you’re here, this is a tarot dream. But for which card?” Melissa spoke to herself to distract herself from watching the judge grinding their feet into the increasingly grimy teddy bear. “This can’t be about the Three of Coins or the Three of Spheres, because I already had a sit with myself about them.”
“And what did you learn, Melissa? What insights from the Three of Coins and the Three of Spheres were revealed to you?” Rebecca’s simulacrum used the words Melissa expected to hear from her tarot card reading friend, but there was a vacant quality to the sound. She looked up to see the adult-size judge sitting so very politely on a child-size chair. Just as she imagined Rebecca herself would have sat in this situation.
“Well, what I wrote in my notebook was that the Three of Coins was about accumulating things, and the Three of Spheres was about the responsibility that comes with the things we accumulate. And considering how fast I accumulated things and responsibilities last week because of how my job changed, I’d say that topic has been well covered! Which means, I’m now at the Two of Coins and the Two of Spheres.”
Melissa looked again at the rows upon rows of stuff for sale around her. “So, forgive me if I am at a loss, because the previous cards were all about getting stuff, and here I am being presented with all the stuff I told myself that I would want as an adult when I was still a kid.”
She finally looked at the other judge that had just finished grinding the teddy bear into unrecoverable fluff on the play area rug. She knew the judge was baiting her because that was the kind of behavior she would expect from her past self in her dreams, so instead of being angry, she was merely slightly annoyed again.
“This doesn’t make sense. Why offer me everything when I already have what I need?”, she muttered to herself.
“Why, indeed, Melissa? What could be the difference between the two?” The polite judge stood and took what should have been a small step onto the rug. Instead, the foot fall landed to Melissa’s side and slightly behind, causing her to turn away from the play area to follow the judge’s movement. “Is it not said, Melissa, that ‘Wanting and Needing are Two Separate Things’? If so, you may have what you need, but do you truly have what you want?”
The judge bowed slightly, turned away from Melissa, and began walking down one of the endless shopping aisles. It did not take many steps for the judge to disappear from view.
As Melissa tried to scramble to stand up with intent to follow them, a sudden sense of presence beside her made her flinch and tumble back down. “Oh, Lisa, poor misguided Lisa. You stupid rat of a child, Lisa. I don’t know why they even attempt to guide you, Lisa, when the answer is in plain sight but you are still too ignorant to see. Wanting and Needing is the same, the only difference is what are you willing to acknowledge and what are you willing to shame yourself for acknowledging it? As if you know the difference, Lisa.”
The judge turned away from her as well, but instead of walking down the aisle that the first judge had traversed, they walked through the play area one last time. They kicked over the chairs and the play table. They kicked away the play tea set and ground whatever remaining teddy bear fluff they came across into the play area rug. Having destroyed Melissa’s symbol of childhood as much as possible, they continued walking away from her into another endless aisle and soon disappeared from sight as well.
Melissa shifted her position to sit cross-legged on the strangely lukewarm floor. She knew that there would be no trace of either judge for her to follow, and that everything here was just a dream illusion in the first place. And yet, a question remained burning in her thoughts.
She may have what she needs, but does she have what she want, and just what does she want, anyway?
A sudden cold and tacky sensation on her cheek forced Melissa to wake up. She had drooled in her sleep and had just turned over to place her face squarely in the sodden mess. Unsettled by the dream and grossed out by the slimy tackiness on her pillow, she pulled herself out of bed to take care of herself and her linens.
Yesterday, she and Jeanette were supposed to go to their mother’s apartment. Yesterday, she and Jeanette were supposed to spend time catching up with her and continuing to make peace with the past by being very much in the present. Yesterday, she and Jeanette were supposed to have a normal day with the horrible burden of being doted upon at Barbara’s Diner after the visit.
Yesterday, Melissa did laundry early in the morning and realized how that routine would have to change if she was going to limit her exposure. Yesterday, she looked at the friend invites across the few social media sites she had logged in to and wondered if her job title meant she would have to be excessively online again. Yesterday, she and Jeanette had a group video call with Deborah (and Samantha) in place of being there in person. Yesterday ended with a quiet sandwich in front of an already forgotten serial television episode.
Today, Melissa felt like shit.
She felt disappointed with herself, disappointed with the world, disappointed with her concept of adulthood, disappointed with her extended family, disappointed with how normal all these sudden changes and twists in her life have become, and disappointed about not having any idea of what she is not supposed to be disappointed about because that’s just how life is and she should have known better than to have faith in anything before she went and got her feelings hurt.
As she finished changing the bed linens, she realized what she was most disappointed about in general; she didn’t know what she was disappointed with specifically. Melissa had general notions about what she was displeased with in her life, but if she were suddenly required to list them all in bullet points, her list would be very short.
Too early to get up for the day, but too awake to try to go back to sleep, Melissa shuffled to the kitchen to stare at her full cabinets and full fridge and full freezer and full bowl of fruit to finally decide that a glass of water would do for now. When she looked over to the table that used to be her dining and tarot nook, but now boasted a right and proper computer, she had a flash of panic for seeing the improved gear.
Jeanette said it was a pretty good system that would easily meet Melissa’s needs. Which implied that it would not be adequate to meet the paralegal’s needs. Which also implied that it wasn’t good enough after all and maybe Melissa should have purchased the most advanced option available since she had the money to do so.
When trying to drown her worries didn’t work, she turned on the television and started idly clicking through streaming services. She learned very quickly that the internal changes that were making her more aware of the world around her had also changed what she judged to be worthwhile to sit through. Season 8 of “Most Glorious Love Loss” was not going to be her comfort show this time, even if Bai Wan Li had finally managed to prove to the Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal that he was truly innocent of the charges he was executed for and thus, deserved another chance at a fulfilling mortal life.
Melissa busied herself by attempting everything except writing down her dream in her tarot notebook. The art of capturing nebulous ideas into increasingly precise phrases usually gave her peace in the moment and distance to ruminate on the tarot judge dreams without judgement. But this particularly early morning, Melissa found herself wanting to distance herself from the tarot judges more than usual. Just trying to recall the dream gave her anxiety, which she oddly recognized as something noteworthy on its own.
“Most Glorious Love Loss” wasn’t a comfort show anymore, but the scenery and costumes were more than sufficient to distract her. So, when Bai Wan Li betrayed his lover in his fifth attempt at a fulfilling mortal life, Melissa surprised herself by declaring to the empty room that if the character wasn’t willing to take the time to learn how to have a fulfilling mortal life in the first place, then he didn’t deserve a sixth chance.
On screen, the Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal was gloating over Bai Wan Li’s inevitable execution and return to the demon realms. He was pontificating at length how easy it was to nudge humans into acts that worked against them, merely by making the truth too uncomfortable to perceive.
The monologue chilled Melissa colder than any winter had pervaded in her life. She paused the show on a frame that had the Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal facing the camera, facing her. In the series, the Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal was not an evil figure but was spun from the celestial hierarchy as a response to the hubris of humans. After all, in the fictional universe of the show, the demon lords were not created to frustrate or to condemn humanity, but to encourage humanity to refine itself into more harmonious beings.
The premise being that by showing humans what could happen if their desires were indulged without temperance, that humans would learn valuable lessons before any permanent harm came to them. Melissa’s cold lucidity brought forth the almost forgotten dream in its entirety. How she raced through the Store of Everything She Wanted in search of Something She Needed, but with no awareness of what would satisfy that need.
The writers of “Most Glorious Love Loss” had made it clear by the eighth season of the show, that the main character Bai Wan Li’s core need was to be accepted for the person he is, flaws and all. But because he was not willing to accept his lovers with the same grace, betrayal was inevitable.
Melissa unpaused the show. The Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal completed his monologue and turned away from the camera while stroking his beard in thought. There would be no sixth chance for Bai Wan Li. The mortal man’s fate is to become a servant of the Demon Lord Minister of Betrayal, to become a demon himself beyond all reach of the heavenly courts.
“The fate of those who do not recognize their faults, is to become their faults.”
As the credits roll, Melissa cannot turn her attention away from the parallels of the show and the turns of her life. Now that she had her life together, despite the emergence of so much beyond her control, why did she feel worse?
She turned the television off and sat quietly on the couch until even the sound of her breathing felt overbearing and ominous. She needed something to distract her, something safe to bury her attention into.
Last year, when she felt like this, she would have gone to the bar and tried her hand at scoring some drinks for free. Hard to have angst if you’re too drunk to have anything stable. When was the last time that she had a drink, anyway?
She sighed and leaned forward to eventually place her face in her hands. When was the last time that she acted with no thought of consequences, anyway? When was the last time that she felt she could make a choice without worrying if it was the right choice to make? Or if she was adult enough in the first place to have the honor of making a choice?
Her dream came to mind again, and with it the parade of all the things she always wanted as the tokens of adulthood. How clear it was to her now that for all the wanting she had in the dream, she had no awareness about how inconsequential these tokens were in the first place.
The tears that were stalking Melissa’s eyes from the moment she woke up suddenly vanished. Her face became hot in her hands, and when she sat up straight to place her hands on her knees, a surprisingly fierce determination covered her face instead.
“Fuck.”
For all the softness that she said the word, the self-accusation hidden in the fricative forced her to act on her new understanding.
“The judge asked me if I truly have what I want, and in the middle of that dream, I didn’t understand what she… they meant. All the things on those shelves were things that I thought I would need once I grew up. What I really need now that I am a grown-up… Now that I have money and rent covered and more food than I could actually eat and a computer good enough to do my job…”
“What I actually need as a grown-up, is to feel better about myself. And that… That can’t be bought.”
Melissa tried to hold in her tears. She tried to distract herself by thinking of the character of Bai Wan Li from the show. But in analyzing the fictional character and seeing from a distance how he had sabotaged himself by refusing to acknowledge his need for acceptance, Melissa analyzed herself and how she had been sabotaging herself long before she ever encountered Rebecca and how she was continuing to sabotage herself even now.
She let go of the appearance of adulthood and permitted herself to cry from the emotional pain that came with realizing how very alone she was, and how much more alone she was going to be if the pandemic strikes with the force that better adults than her were openly afraid of.
She was not aware of when she laid down on the couch, only that the pillows she was resting against were very good and very comfy pillows. She was not aware of when she fell asleep on the couch, only that the couch fit her form snugly and held the weight of her sorrow with ease.
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