"Do you want something too?" My best friend Alice asks.
"No thanks, I'm completely out of money. I got some free pizza at school yesterday, and I took enough home to make it til payday, but that's about it." I don't actually have enough to last, but I'm not going to make Alice worry over me.
Alice gives me the look. You know, the one where a childhood friend looks right through you to all the secrets you are keeping? "He'll have a double cheeseburger with large fries," she whips around, poking her finger in my chest, "No arguing! This is payback for hosting movie night last week." She pays and we find a table in the corner. The little number 15 they gave us at the counter is mocking me. That's three times what I have in my pocket, and nothing else is coming in.
"How bad is it, really?" Her gaze is unnerving. It's picking me apart.
"I lost my job. I was closing, and there was all this food we were supposed to throw out; but there was this mother who lost her home. She had two kids, and they were starving. The food would be bad tomorrow, and we couldn't sell it. I thought giving it to them was no big deal," I sigh, "they called me the next morning and told me not to come back."
"That's fucked! It was trash anyway! What were you supposed to do?"
"Throw it in the dumpster and pour bleach on it."
"That's so messed up. Welcome to the post capitalist hellscape." She mock toasts with her soda before taking a big swig. Then we sit in silence while the waiter drops off our food. Neither of us wants to break the fragile peace and admit that I need to do something drastic to get money now or I'll be forced to drop out of school. In this job market, if I drop out I'll spend the rest of my life homeless. Besides, I have my heart set on being a lawyer. Forcing the system to change is the only thing that can save people at this point, and it is the only thing keeping me going. I don't really need food…
Alice pops a fry in her mouth, "My advisor is running a new experiment. He is buying dreams. They hook you up to some machine where they copy your dreams and then they allow others to experience them. It is a trial run for some new medium… I don't know. I hear it pays well though."
"So, like, you sleep in the machines?" I take a bite of my burger, chewing slowly. This is probably my only meal today.
"I guess? I don't know…" we both chew in silence for a moment. "Do you want the number? Should I let my prof know you're coming?"
"Yeah, it's the only job lead I have right now. No one is hiring again until the Christmas rush in a month, and then it's only seasonal work." She nods, wiping her hands on a napkin and tossing it on the table. Grabbing my hand, she takes out her pen and writes the number and email out.
"Call first thing in the morning. I'll cc you on an introductory email tonight."
We enjoy the rest of our meal, and I try not to pay attention to all the homeless around us while we walk thorugh the park. Is the space under that bridge taken? Or will I be crashing there in a couple of weeks? Trying not to think about it makes it harder to ignore.
She buys me a sandwich, orange, and some chips before we part. I can't bring myself to eat the sandwich tonight, so I contend myself with the orange. The sandwich can be breakfast tomorrow.
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The phone call in the morning goes well, and they have me come into the lab at 8 pm.
The lab is a nondescript brick building that reminds me equally of a mental asylum and a school building. There is no elevator, so Suite 443 is up 4 flights of stairs and down a windowless hallway. I walk into what could be any doctor's waiting room, and sign into the sheet at the counter. They are running a little behind and ask me to wait. I take out my homework and settle in.
I get through two homework assignments and halfway through reading the chapter for my 9 am class tomorrow when Dr. Hofstatter comes into the waiting room.
"Mark? Hi, Alice told me you would be coming in. Was she able to tell you what we do here?" He shakes my hand, I throw my work haphazardly into my backpack and we walk further into the back.
"Hi! Um, Alice wasn't really clear. Something about dreams and using them as a new form of entertainment?" We arrive at some kind of consultation room and sit down at a small desk.
"Ah, not quite. That was something we were hypothesizing in class today, but that technology is still a few years off. No, what we do here is a little more concrete.
"So, you are part of the lower or working class and you are in college to try to leverage yourself into the upper class, right?"
"Uh, I mean, yeah?"
"Well, problems in the lower classes typically relate to resources. Will I have enough to eat? Can I find a warm place to sleep? That kind of thing." I nod, currently facing those same problems myself.
"The upper class faces a different set of problems," he continues, "because they have everything they need, and more money than their great grandchildren can spend, many suffer from problems of ambition. Why would you bother learning or working on doing anything if everything you could possibly want is provided for you."
"That sounds awful!" I interject, "How do they innovate if they have no ambition?"
"Exactly! And this lack of innovation is causing rigidity in the class system and putting us on a path toward extinction. After all, why would you fix world hunger or address climate change if you have no ambition? This program aims to stop this problem. You are young and hungry. You have dreams, tons of them, right?"
"Of course! There is a lot I want to do. I want to help lift people out of poverty, and become a great Lawyer. I want to push for political change, and—"
"That's great!" he cuts me off "So you will sell us a couple of those dreams, we will pay you a monthly sum based on the number of dreams you sell as long as they are in use." He hands me a leaflet with the monthly totals. It has more zeros on it than I've ever seen.
"This is a lot of money, I mean I could live on this for the rest of my life."
"As long as the dreams are in use. All you need to do is sign this paper, and then we will begin the extraction process. Don't worry, it won't hurt at all."
I take the pen. I really don't have a choice, and this way I'll be able to stay in school.
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"So how was the dream thing?" are the first words out of Alice's mouth when we meet up for our weekly lunch.
"Great! Didn't feel a thing, and now I have five times what I need coming into my bank account every month."
"That's fantastic!" Her face falls. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I feel great!" I assure her, "Why?"
"You just walked past a group of homeless kids, and you didn't even notice. That's not like you at all. I've seen you give your last $5 to a homeless kid before."
"I just don't see how that's my problem." I take a few more steps before I notice she isn't next to me anymore. I turn and look back at her, she looks horrified.
"How was your test on Wednesday?" She asks slowly, uncertainly, articulating each syllable as though I might not understand what she is saying.
"I didn't go. I dropped out. Oooh, the new Pho place is open, let's go there! I'll buy." I turn to keep walking. She hasn't moved. I'm at the door of the restaurant before I hear her jog to catch up. She grabs my arm and pushes me against the wall next to the door. She is trying to be imposing, but she is so much shorter than me the entire situation feels comical. I manage not to laugh only because she looks so scared.
She reaches up, holding my face so I'm forced to look her in the eye. "You don't want to be a lawyer? What about your dreams? You have wanted that law degree so you could rewrite the laws of this country to be more fair since your dad was shot in front of you by the poliece when we were 6."
I shrug, "Did I want that? My dad died a long time ago. Besides, TV and video games are much more fun than law school."
"But, but, what about your dreams," she practically screams.
"I don't really see the point of dreams."