summer dream

<== <img src="https://i.postimg.cc/DwTwDpgZ/8-EA442-B8-BC69-49-A0-A8-EB-C8090021-BAA4.jpg" width="600" height="600" > (text-size:2) [[ 懐かしい ]] "They had created themselves together, and they always saw themselves, their youth, their love, their lost youth and lost love, their failures and memories, as a sort of living fiction." -Elizabeth Hardwick (font:'Courier') [[summary/abstract]] (font:'Courier')+(text-size:2) [[begin]]

(font:'Courier') [Adjective] 懐なつかしい • (natsukashii) -i (adverbial 懐なつかしく (natsukashiku)) nostalgic, reminiscent of good memories, missed, longed for, yearned after (font:'Courier') [[Return|introduction]]

You wake up like molasses, slowly and sweetly. It is a late summer morning. You appear to be in an old [[tea house]] that has been turned into a living space. Warm [[sheets]] are spread on the tatami floor, and several empty soda bottles are overturned a few feet away. The walls are pasted with a sea green paper material that is beginning to curl at the corners from age. The tea house’s [[shoji screens]] are closed.

Ceramic tea cups and tea trays are stuffed into every shelf and corner. The house smells faintly of black tea and sweet flowers. (font:'Courier')[[Look around more|begin]]

You slide one panel behind the next, squinting as bright light floods the house. Summer is ripe outside your home. The season has always felt magical yet fleeting. You take a deep breath as the heat spills into the room in sticky, enveloping tendrils. The morning heat has never bothered you. In an odd, undescribable way, it comforts you. (font:'Courier')[[Step outside]]

The sheets on the futon linger with the aroma of sea salt and sugary soda. The linen is body-warm. You have not slept this soundly in days. (font:'Courier')[[Arrange the disorganized sheets|begin]]

The village convenience store, [[7 Eleven]], is to the left. To the right, neighborhood cats gather jovially as one of the town [[grandmas]] crouches to feed them. Your vintage Volkswagen van is parked to the side of the tea house. You still wish you could somehow scrape off the vehicle's tacky sea green [[paint job]]. Hills sprawl in the distance, with [[mountain streams]] beyond. Your [[home|begin]] is behind you.

You crouch down next to the cats, smiling as one of the tabbies greets you with a soft trill. "Hi, dear," the grandma says warmly. You reach up to give her a quick embrace. "Please take these," the grandmother says as she shoves a couple of [[glass containers]] into your hands. "I wanted to cook some for my son but ended up making too many containers for him to carry back to college. Help me empty my fridge a little." (font:'Courier')[[Thank her and exchange farewells|Step outside]]

You walk through the sliding doors. The shelves are overflowing with all kinds of snacks and drinks imaginable: rice cakes, ice cream sandwiches, smoothies, even seasoned chicken thighs. You stop at the soda isle, picking up the lemon-lime-flavored bottle. They haven't had these in stock for months. Her favorite flavor. (font:'Courier')[[Take the soda and check out|Step outside]]

Truthfully, you can't bring yourself to scrape it off quite yet. You still recall how she sneakily brushed that ridiculous green paint on your nose, her laugh both shrill and melodic. She was wearing a floral summer dress. You didn't know how she planned to get all the paint stains out of it. (font:'Courier')[[You let the memory fade|Step outside]]

You open the top one. Hot seafood tempuras, deep-fried to a buttery gold. It looks like dinner is covered. (font:'Courier')[[Close lid|grandmas]]

You walk down the long village path to where the mountain streams hug the edge of town. There she stands, mountain water rising up to her knees. The white dress she wears flows loosely across her frame. (font:'Courier')[[Call her name]]

Your voice carries to her, and she turns, her face lighting up as you hold up the lemon-lime soda. She takes you in her arms. She smells of tea leaves, as always. You notice she is clutching the seashell necklace you made her in her fist. "I wish moments like this would never end. I wish this summer would never end." You nod knowingly, glancing up at the cloudless sky. A faint, radiating sound pulses in your head. You pull back and ask if she hears the noise. Yet when you pull away from her warmth, no one is there. The streams surge angrily in mourning. Wildflowers wilt at your feet. (font:'Courier')[[Was any of this ever there at all?]]

[[<img src='https://i.postimg.cc/bwwkWvLd/93-E7-D0-EA-9-A4-B-4651-A674-B52-D6919-E190.png'>->Next Passage]]

This time, you wake up brutally. Your alarm clock emits an obnoxious rhythm into your ear. The mountain stream of your dream has waned away to reveal the dull, sterile four walls of your dorm room. The winter sun peeks punily through your dusty window. The room smells stuffily of leftover food and metallic sink water. You roll over on the stiff mattress and snatch your phone. (font:'Courier')[[Turn off the alarm]]

You blink at your phone to clear the fog in your eyes. The harsh blueness of your device’s home screen flashes onto your face. (font:'Courier')[[Open Instagram]]

The usual cat videos. Posts from everyone’s winter break vacations last week. Lots of couples huddled together under Christmas trees, swathed in matching bright sweaters. (font:'Courier')[[Continue scrolling]]

<== <img src='https://i.postimg.cc/CLK73YFP/F3-A3556-C-1-CF8-4-A99-A24-F-2-C16-CED49-AB9.jpg' width="500" height="500" > In routine, you scroll drowsily through your feed. You pause at a video clip from The Great Gatsby. Daisy and Gatsby hold each other’s eyes, both glowing with a bright haze. Surrounded by quilted green pillows and long-leafed plants, Gatsby traces his finger around Daisy’s face. The scene switches to show Gatsby smiling gently, his shining eyes reflective of the pool below that is filled with party tassels. (font:'Courier')+(text-size:5) [[♡]]

[[<img src='https://i.postimg.cc/9QhdWhVH/2200334-E-839-F-4187-AB0-B-2-AB3-A67-AA565.png'>->New Passage]]

You shake your head, vision swimming momentarily. Is it the heat? Why do you feel so drowsy? It is now evening at the tea house. The screen doors are propped open slightly to let the evening air in. You step out of the shower, fresh towels wrapped warmly around your body. You [[approach her]], your bare feet sticky against the humid floor.

She sits cross-legged, holding a small cup. Tendrils of steam rise from her tea, resembling a curled cat's tail. She is draped in a silk sleep dress with stolen [[wildflowers]] tucked behind her ear. She smells sweet, woodsy. You crouch down, smiling as she extends her mug to you. (font:'Courier')[[Take the tea]]

You reach out to brush the array of blooms. Fringed irises, tulips, buttercups, and snowbells. She must have been out all afternoon in the fields searching for these. (font:'Courier')[[Observe her|approach her]]

You sip the green liquid slowly, letting your lips linger momentarily on the warm edge of the cup. You lift your eyes to meet hers. The room is empty. You are suffocatingly alone. Your cup shatters, and hot tea gushes onto your bare feet. (font:'Courier')[[Wake up]]

You startle awake. When did you fall asleep again? The time now reads 7:30. You sigh, your phone dropped onto your chest. You stare at the ceiling, memorizing the fissures in the paint. Anything to delay having to go to your 8am class. (font:'Courier')[[Wait]]

In this sensual interactive fiction game, the player jolts in and out of a lucid and youthful dream, stimulating a sense of nostalgia for memories and places never experienced. The dream is set in a hilly countryside village, where greenery stretches as far as the eye can see and streams flow at the edge of town. There are tea houses, small, green-painted convenience stores, and friendly neighborhood cats. As the player traverses this unreal and bittersweet environment, they are jarringly awakened to the contrast of a humdrum reality. The dream world portrays romanticized youth, a sort of "hyperreality" that in turn dictates how the player views their reality. The media’s magical portrayal of adolescence and romance ends up feeling more real than the players' experience of their youth. This game illustrates the question of how to thrive in the tedious, sometimes insipid day-to-day routines that often seem so far removed from the winsome fantasy portrayed in the media. (font:'Courier') [[Return|introduction]]

[[<img src='https://i.postimg.cc/q77x7Gb4/730.png'>->clock2]]

[[<img src='https://i.postimg.cc/rFnmkCrS/745.png'>->walk]]

The clock now shows you have ten minutes until your upcoming lecture. Hurrying to class, you hug your sweater close. You can feel the blood coloring red under your cheeks. You simply can't stand winter. You hear your name called, and your momentum falters. Approaching you is the [[woman]] from your fantasies, as breathtaking and fragile as a fever dream. Despite the cold, she still wears that loose ivory dress.

She stops a few inches away from you. There is veiled concern in her eyes. “You...you are not as I remember you. You have somehow become... numb. Let me help you. Please.” (font:'Courier')[[Push her away]] (font:'Courier')[[Embrace her guidance]]

"No. You don’t exist. You are a construct of my mind. That’s all." You push past her shoulder roughly, only pausing halfway when you realize it’s raining. The sky, depressingly gray, appears ashen against the bright sweaters of the students around you. The cold water drips down into your clothes and shoes. (font:'Courier')[[Oh great. Just what you needed today, and you didn’t even bring an umbrella.]]

She reaches up and brushes your eyes softly closed with her fingers. You feel a strange lightness and peek your eyes open. You appear to have been relocated into a [[memory]] from your childhood.

And so your day continues as it always does: in an endless loop of lectures. You sit in class, trying to shake away the unnerving deja vu that you have experienced this exact day at least a hundred times now. Each day plays like a broken record. Wake up, check your phone and social media, get ready, walk to classes, endure classes, eat meals, go to your dorm, and be consumed by more work until you fall asleep from exhaustion, wake up, and repeat. Sometimes you feel like an insect trapped in honey. [[Time passes|time passing]] lethargically slow.

<img src='https://i.postimg.cc/MGb0tFn7/1-BB7-C911-08-F7-4-C58-9-DC3-E7-DB2-F35-E981.png' width="500" height="500"> Your small hands are hugging a bunny plushie tight to your chest, face radiant upon seeing the stack of pancakes before you. The breakfast shop is saturated with a golden hue from the morning sun. Your mother wraps her arm around you, tracing the sunlight on your hair, relieved that your temper has dissipated. Sometimes the best cures are the [[simplest ones]]. In this case, pancakes.

In a blink, you are transported yet again. You immediately recognize this memory as one of your most cherished ones from high school. You and your mother step out of the busy museum onto the balcony and meet the most breathtaking view of the city below. The city stretches into the distance, a canvas of glittering lights reflecting the stars above. The city seemed so tranquil from up in the mountains. Your mother secured you a spot in the balcony's right corner, where the ironic quietness of the city below engulfed us. The breeze is warm, but carries with it a sense of refreshment. You stand in the silence, frozen by unexplainable emotions, tears spilling hot down your cheeks. (font:'Courier')[[You pause at a sudden burst of cold|You pause at a certain burst of cold]]

You jolt awake once again, standing in the middle of the campus pathway. The girl from your dream has vaporized as if she was never really there at all. You blink as cold moisture drips onto your face. Or are those tears? You walk forward slowly, a downpour plummeting from the dark cloud above. Nope, definitely rain. The [[people around you]] shriek, many throwing their backpacks up over their heads.

A person behind you begins to run and laugh in disbelief. Almost in a trance, you watch as she passes, rainwater dripping off her long hair. Rain is now flowing over the pathway bricks and dancing off the tree leaves above. You smile quietly to yourself. There were so many delicate moments to appreciate. The people clinging to each other, dashing to cover in clumsy, uncoordinated steps. The shrieks of surprise. (font:'Courier')[[Youth.|What is youth?]]

Youth is made up of all the things you love that have been in front of you all along. You've simply been too busy living your life to appreciate it. Youth is the worn plushies piled in your room that you have too much sentiment to get rid of. It is the homemade pumpkin bread wrapped in foil your mom sent with you to college. Youth is seaside sunsets, mountain breezes, glittering cityscapes, warm pancakes, rain that catches you off-guard, and laughter until your breath escapes you. You feel a sense of gratitude to the woman of your dreams. You think back to your dreams and let them flow out of your mind and into the rainwater pooling at your feet. (font:'Courier')[[End|introduction]]

Mid-lecture, you close your eyes, envisioning yourself as the ocean. Carrying the balance of the world in pockets heavy with salt. Your youth appears to glimmer on the surface, but you know how your reality is suffocated by debris and drainage. And yet the ocean continues to fall upon the shore in tides each morning and night. Has anyone ever wondered if it is tired of the monotony? The ocean, you think, is lonely, looking out upon the crystal skies and jade forests, wishing it too could be as lush and free. And so, sitting in that arid classroom, you too are engulfed by waves of longing. (font:'Courier')[[Swim|walk]] (font:'Courier')[[Drown|introduction]]