Dreamscapes: Just Send Me the Priest From Fleabag

Magic carpets, hidden roots, wings of flight — and the quest for connection

“I can show you the world, shining, shimmering, splendid,” I sing softly, as I make my way through a semi-outdoor restaurant. I don’t know why I feel compelled to sing A Whole New World, but soon I am belting it out. Suddenly I hear a male voice singing with me, and I realize it is a friend of mine, sitting at the bar with his girlfriend. We harmonize the last bit, and finish with much gusto. After we’re done, we laugh and thank each other, and then I am on my way. His girlfriend comes with me.

She and I walk through the woods. We get to a white house in the middle of the woods that has a ratty looking patio and fence at the bottom, and there are rickety stairs that spiral up. I have my bike with me, but I don’t see a safe space to lock it, so I take it in my hands and compress it until it is only a foot or so wide. We continue up the stairs, into a tiny one-room apartment. There isn’t much more than a television and a mattress on the floor, although there is a sliding glass door that leads to a little balcony. We see one of our guy friends watching the TV. I’m trying to decide if we like each other. I sit off to the side while my friends talk, and I decide to test my powers. I hold my hands out, palms up, and I focus until little blue beams of electricity come out.

My guy friend starts to talk to me, but I interrupt. “I’m going to leave,” I say. I feel like a third wheel. He looks surprised. I ask him if he will unzip a zipper on the back of my shirt, so I can let my wings out. As he’s unzipping it, he asks, “Why so soon?” I am about to say, “Because it’s obvious you two want to be together,” but when I turn around to say it, their bodies are already tangled, and they have no attention left for me.

I make my way down the stairs and shrink my bike even smaller until I can fit it into my backpack. I feel my wings unfurling, pushing their way out of the zipper. They are long and skinny, and an earthy brownish-grey. I leap into the air, when suddenly I see a very strange creature, a 15-foot-long, mechanized half-centipede, half-scorpion, winding through the air above the road. I have no godly idea if it’s dangerous or not, but I don’t want to find out, so I rest in the top of a tree while I wait for it to pass. After it’s gone, I gently jump into the air and start to fly again. I briefly wonder if flying is looked at with suspicion here, and touch down for a moment to walk. Walking is so slow that I can’t stand it, and I jump into the air again.

I see sinister-looking beings walking around everywhere, but before any can get to me I touch down and crawl over to a strange looking tangle of tree roots. There are peculiar shapes and faces among them, and I know that my boyfriend is underground, right below them. I lay my whole body on top of the roots, and they slowly start drawing me under. Any of the creatures who walk by now will be satisfied to see that I am being eaten, but I alone know that the roots will bring me no harm.

With a crash, I land on the floor in my boyfriends’s apartment, right next to his bed. It only takes me a second to realize that he is in it, laptop open, furiously masturbating. He yells in shock, and I holler, “I’m sorry!” as I run away, laughing. I stumble into the other room, doubled over, trying to catch my breath.

I head back to the bedroom, but it has turned into a different kind of room altogether, with tables and stairs and many, many men. I look at each of them eagerly to see my boyfriend, but as they turn their faces, none of them are him. I am starting to get upset. In desperation, I cry, “Just send me the Priest from Fleabag!” Suddenly, at the top of the stairs, I see black robes, and my heart swells with hope, but then he twirls and it is an ugly man with raggedy blonde curls and a sneer on his face. He laughs at me, then saunters away.

Distraught, I leave the apartment. I make my way to my house, which is nothing more than a blowup mattress in a tent on the side of the road, all white like my friend’s house. I am trying to sleep, but then I hear the tent zipper being undone and behind it is a very pretty woman. I wonder if she’s here to make out with me, but she says, “Kylo Ren is coming to get you.” She must see the excitement in my eyes, because she then says, “You need to lay low. He will come and find you.”

Lay low? Fat chance! As soon as she leaves, I make my way out of the tent. I can’t stay there — I have to look for him. I begin to fly around the town, searching high and low for his ship. I rest for a moment on a stranger’s porch, when all at once, beyond their fence, I see him slowly coming down from the sky. He is facing away from me, surrounded by a ghostly red glow. His hair, dark and wavy, flows past his shoulders. I fly over to where he is floating, and around to the front of him. We kiss passionately, and I feel my heart melting into his.