As the title indicates, I had yet another dream last night... I don't remember very much of it but what I do remember intrigues me and may become a story idea :)
In the dream, I'm a little girl sitting in a red sports car with the top open, next to my slim funky-looking short-haired mother who is driving the car. We're driving through what looks like wide open fields but on a proper tar road, and then suddenly we come to what seems to be the end of a plateau and from where we stop, the ground slopes down to a plain dotted with bungalow houses and beyond that, the deep blue sea. I am delighted with the sea breeze we feel (maybe an effect of me having turned the air-conditioner on last night :P), but my mother says nothing and continues down the road on that slope until we come to a pair of elaborate white metal gates, the kind with lots of curls and what i believe are called trellises (although I'm not sure). At that moment, I have a feeling of deja vu, as if I'd read about this scene before (perhaps, in my non-dream life, I have) or dreamt about it or something. And because of that, I knew I was supposed to go and open the gates even though my mother didn't say a word. So I jumped out of the car and did just that, and a grey-haired lady dressed in a genteel-looking dress of soft lilac/pink is standing at the side of the driveway. Just as my mother drives in and stops right before what seems to be a huge porch, I turn around and see that right behind us is a faded-looking car and some kids are climbing over each other calling out: "Grandma!" Strangely, I have the feeling that they are my cousins and that the lady is MY grandmother too. I turn and look at the grey-haired lady, who walks right past me ignoring me even though I am sure she has seen me and welcomes the other kids warmly instead. I turn to my mother for some sort of explanation, but she is deliberately not looking at me and is lugging our luggage out of the car instead. I head towards the house and am awestruck by its size and what appears to be the decor, which seems terribly elaborate and lacy and ENGLISH. I am intimidated, but at the same time feel as if I have come home.
At that point I wake up because my alarm rings. (That appears to be the way in which my dreams often end :P) Thinking about it while lying in bed just after the alarm rang and even throughout the day, I started defining my characters and fleshing out the storyline until it seems to be an entire saga all on itself. It's not that unique a plot really, it's just how me the timid but secretly bubbly grandchild and my mother the outcast and dark sheep of the family gradually melt my grandmother's stern and disdainful dislike towards us and we become a real family again. All the usual stock in trade make their appearance, such as the absence of a father who was the real reason why my mother was ostracised and why my grandma considered me a "bastard" and told the other kids so such that they jeered at me, being mistreated by my grandma like seeing my cousins given preferential treatment and constantly being ignored by my grandma, and even the household servants disdained me.
[continuation of story idea] The only household servant that took pity on me was a man of a different race who was had the lowest position among all the servants... I took a liking to him and he would make me laugh and give me toys he made himself and was my friend. One day in front of the servants he gave me one of the toys and I broke into a smile and a laugh that enchanted all the other servants. However, Grandma made a disparaging remark about how I was like my mother, only liking men from other races (she had a derogatory term for that, but I'm not all that well-verse in derogatory terms so never mind). On hearing her words I suddenly withdraw into timid sobriety and return the toy to him and run off. Gradually, because of this incident the servants warm to me but my grandma still rejected me even though I had very similar interests to hers (like baking, and needlework of some sort; I forget if it was crocheting or something like that) and kept trying to connect with her. Eventually I learn (at my precocious age) to bake a cake for grandma, and when she is told about it she expresses scorn that I could do any such thing and demands that I make a cake before her very eyes, without any help from anyone else. I manage most of the tasks to everyone's surprise, and am just carrying the batter to the cake tin when one of my cousins, who is watching as well, decides to sabotage me by tripping me up with his radio car. No one stops him but instead of tripping, I step on the car instead and break the toy, injuring my foot deeply. The cook rushes forward to help me but Grandma holds her back and insists that I deal with the situation on my own. So I hobble to the table, put my mixing bowl down, then hobble to get tissue and clean my wound and bind it up. I also clean up the blood on the floor and then wash my hands thoroughly and proceed with the cake. When the cake goes into the oven Grandma finally speaks, telling everyone that even after the cake is done, she will not eat it because it has been baked by a bastard, and that I will have to pay for the toy car that I broke. With that, she sweeps out of the kitchen and I am very downhearted. However, I decided to finish the job that I started, so I ice the cake prettily with pink and white icing and lots of curls, and then at tea-time when she and some other ladies (I'm not sure if they are relatives or friends) are sitting around the table, I carefully carry my creation out and slide it onto the table in front of her. "Please try it, Grandma" I say, looking up at her with pleading eyes, while the other ladies at the table look on. She stares down at the cake but refuses to pick up her fork or look at me. Something breaks inside me and I ask her with a tremble in my voice: "Grandma, why can't you love me?" Grandma replies with a kind of brittle hardness in her voice that she simply can't tolerate mistakes and I just have to live with it.
At that point in time my mother, whom I hadn't realised was at the table with all the other ladies, stands up, stares straight ahead (i.e. not at Grandma) and says she's sorry, but she has to leave... It was a mistake to come back and she should never have put her child through so much pain. She walks over and picks me up into her arms, and as she leaves the room without looking back, I look over her shoulder and softly cry: "Grandma..." Grandma still hasn't moved.
My mother and I go into our room and we start packing, and Mom starts telling me about her childhood and how she was a "mistake" that Grandma and Grandpa didn't intend to have. Initially they were upset at having an unplanned, extra mouth to feed, but gradually Grandma was won over by my mother's bubbly and creative nature which was unique among the family. Grandma thus doted on my mother but Grandpa was a strict bigot and was very unhappy when my mother started dating a man from another race. He threatened to lock her up and as a result Mom eloped with the man who would eventually become my father. Because of that, Grandma was very hurt and that was why she had given us a very cold reception when my father died and Mom and I came back to live with her. Mom said she had been prepared for the ostracism they practised towards her but not for the pain I would go through as I faced that similar ostracism, and Grandma's sentence about mistakes had brought back to her painful memories of being ostracised as a child, and she didn't want to subject me to that anymore. I wanted to tell her "but I feel at home here", yet I dared not because I didn't want to make Mom feel that I wasn't on her side and hurt her in the process.
At that moment, Grandma comes into the room and says that we don't have to leave. Mom still wants to leave but Grandma apologises and says she shouldn't have said that about mistakes and that Mom was the best mistake she ever made. They hug and then Grandma turns to me and says that she will eat my cake. True to her word, she goes into the kitchen and the cook cuts a slice for her and we all watch breathlessly as she hesitates... Then plunges her fork firmly into the cake and gulps down a bite. A smile spreads across her face and she says the cake was quite good, but could be better. I ask: "Grandma, can you please teach me how to make a better cake?" and she nods with a smile.
And everything turns out happily :) I do love happy endings. (This reminds me to go and look up that article about how women's fantasies picture things getting worse and worse until they suddenly perk up at the end, and men's fantasies picture things being better and better until disaster strikes and things go downhill -- Which could actually help to explain why women like Bollywood movies better than men do :P)
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