I’ve been a dream planner for ten years. It’s a hereditary job, and I’ve heard from my mom that this job has been going on since her grandmother. Maybe even earlier, but it’s been too long to be traced.

I have been creating dreams for so many people, but I am the one who doesn’t know what dreaming feels like. I remember that when I was a child, before I inherited the job from my mom, I blamed her many times for it.

When I first heard my classmate in kindergarten talk about the dream he had the night before, describing to the other children how brave he was when he tried to kill a dragon, I asked him curiously: “What’s a ‘dream’? What does it feel like?” All the children looked at me and laughed.

“No way! You’ve never had a dream? When you’re sleeping?” I shook my head.

“She’s a weirdo!” They screamed and laughed, and then ran away.

I went home and cried to my mom, telling her I felt different from them. “I want to have dreams!”

“Aw, it’s okay, babe.” She stroked my head, “You have to understand that not everyone has a dream in the world.”

When I gradually grew up, she finally told me that she was a dream planner, and I would have to be like her and like other dream planners in the future, which meant I’d never have my own dreams, even after retirement.

The job is okay, and I enjoy making scripts for dreams based on people’s lives. But it’s impossible to get every dream delivered successfully.

Once, I was supposed to give a guy a pleasant dream after he had spent the evening drinking and cheering in a bar because his favourite football player had won a game. But I accidentally sent the image of death to him, so he had a nightmare that the player had died. He sat in bed with his head buried in his hands after he woke up, saying “no way” to himself over and over again, and was in a daze for an hour. I felt so bad that, to make it up to him, I had to give him a good dream the next day in which the player shook hands with him.

Another time, I wrote a script for a sex dream for a girl, as her romantic relationship was going well. It would have been the best scenario I had ever written—she and her boyfriend were lying on the soft grass, there was a breeze and gentle sunshine, and only the fragrance of orange trees surrounded them. I was inspired by their picnic date and wrote it very attentively, as if it were going to be my own dream. But maybe I was too tired from work or something; instead, I made her see him having sex with another girl in the dream. Then she started an argument with him in real life and questioned whether he had cheated on her.

Well, we truly have a big responsibility when it comes to producing dreams, because everyone takes them so seriously and always tries to dig for any life-changing signs in them. Weirdly, it gave me a strange sense of pleasure when I first found that people could be affected by my “power” so easily. But no matter how great the power is, every dream I create feels like a room I cannot enter, and I can only watch from outside the room.

When I’m not on my shift, I normally just chill at a cafe and observe people around me—they might become my dreamers tonight, and their happiness or suffering will all depend on me.

Suddenly, I hear a loud voice from an interview video played by a guy sitting beside me, about a writer’s new book. I recognize the voice.

I burst out laughing when the writer says that her new novel was inspired by a dream she had a year ago. And then I quickly lower my head as the guy looks at me, frowning.

I can’t stop laughing to myself. The writer will never know that I am the reason she had that dream. I’ve been addicted to fantasy novels because they are so similar to dreams, so the dreamy story I gave her was written by me in imitation. It was the first time I had sent my own dream to someone, and surprisingly, she did help me achieve it.

Who knows how much I want to be in the story myself and experience that sense of weightlessness and confusion, because it’s so different from reality?
I feel the power of a sweet temptation pulling me.

Yet it’s a secret that I bury deep down and can’t tell my boss or colleagues.

My shift starts at nine p.m., so I have to go back to work. But somehow, when it comes to my daily task of observing and analyzing others’ lives, I keep getting distracted. The applause from that interview video echoes in my ears all the time. In a daze, I see myself on a stage, being asked where I got the idea for the book.

I stand up from my chair, and my heart jumps so hard.

“What’s happening?” My colleague turns his head, “You’ve been absent-minded tonight.”

I look at the computer; it’s a quarter to ten.

“What is it like to dream?” I murmur.

“Come on, you’ve done the training. It’s vague and fragmented.”

No, no. I’m not asking about the rules or any technical problems. What is it like to dream?

Something feels wrong. The process of dream-making is out of my control. I spend a lot of time staring at the screen without making any progress until my colleagues remind me.

I create more and more dreams, but I don’t see the point, as I have been permanently deprived of the right to dream. And I’m jealous of everyone else.

I gradually ignore people’s real lives; I don’t mean to, but I start to make them dream of what I want to dream.
I want love.

Then roses grow from her bones and break through her skin, but her lover still hugs her tightly and lets the thorns pierce his body.
I want a deep friendship.

Then the flesh of the two friends melts together, and they become one person.
I want loyalty.

So the king keeps his knight’s head in his bedroom.

I want curses, lies, world destruction—

I watch the politician’s brain; a huge rainstorm drowns the city, and I fall into the rain, allowing a black hole to consume me.

I don’t know if I’m sleeping, but I start sleep-talking, and some nonsense makes my colleagues uneasy. I get so confused, and the world is spinning.

Did you see the ten moons in the sky?

No, the grass is red.

Fish are flying, so we need strings to hold them back.

What is written by me, and what is desired by me? I don’t send dreams anymore. I send desires. Reality and dreams have become so difficult to distinguish.

I think about “dreams” all the time, even if I refuse to be the kind of person who is obsessed with their job after work.

I’m sure I must be hallucinating somehow because I see “me” on the street. When I take the tube, lots of passengers have my face. I go to a shop, and I become the cashier who asks me if I want a bag.

If reality is not real, maybe the mirror is. So I look at people through the mirrors in the changing rooms and through the big shopping windows, but they’re still “me”.

I spill my coffee when I hear someone say “roses grow from her bones and break through her skin”. I recognize it; that’s my line.

“Who are you?” I rush to him and question him, but he frowns: “I am me! Who are you?”

I stand there, still, because I don’t know the answer either.

I go back to my workplace and tell my colleague that I should probably talk to my boss.

“I don’t know what the problem is, but something must be wrong.”

“Like what? We don’t see him so often, so you might need to submit a proposal for it.”
I slump in my chair, nodding.

“It could be job burnout. Why don’t you take a break?” he sighs, “Do you want to see the latest dream I’ve just designed? You can get some inspiration.”

He opens a record of a dream and enlarges the screen. There’s a slide and a see-saw in a park, and laughter fills the air. I smile, “I guess it’s a dream for a child.” What a sweet dream.

“Mom, mom, mom.” As I watch these kids yelling and rushing toward a woman, it feels so familiar. It just looks like a scene from my childhood. The more I look at them, the more I think they resemble me.

Then the woman’s figure gradually becomes clearer and clearer, and when she turns back, I see my face.
For the first time in my life, I realize something.

I am finally inside the room. And I am no longer the one writing the dream.