Lasagna Man
content warning: mentions of blood, flesh (poem)
in this recurring childhood dream, I saw Lasagna Man, bloodied and skinless with a spiky flesh crown; I remember fear.
surprisingly I did not fear Lasagna Man — I feared the unknown, I feared going to school for the first time, I feared taking a bus, where the bus might take me, what the bus might be like.
Lasagna Man sat beside me and said encouraging words, told me of the exciting things that school might bring, that new beginnings might have.
I still dream of Lasagna Man when there are big unknowns to come, I dream of a friend who perhaps had an unusual appearance but shone bright from within with his kindness.
Thank you to Rochelle Silva for this prompt: CHILDHOOD DREAMS. (See her original piece here!). I perhaps took your prompt quite literally, remembering an exact childhood dream rather than childhood aspirations.
When I dig deeper though, I think about all the times I pause and reflect on this dream. It’s one of the few memories that I’ve had of my early childhood, and it’s scary to think some four-year-old pre-kindergarten child is dreaming about some bloodied man, and this bloodied man is a friend.
If you’re alarmed, I am too, I still am. I had this dream for about a week when I was a kid, and like the poem describes, I still have it from time to time, when big changes are about to come. I don’t ever remember being scared of this bloodied, skinless man, only that I was scared of big new changes like this abstract notion of “taking the bus”.
I had these dreams again pre-grad school, and acknowledge that every time I have these memories or perhaps these dreams, maybe I’m recolouring it and recalling it in a different light, so take that into account!
What I do know is that at Lasagna Man looks like Bart Simpson with the spiky head, and was primarily yellow. Maybe in trying to imagine Bart Simpson in real life, I thought that skin was skinless and bloody, with the consistency of lasagna. That’s why he’s called Lasagna Man.
Like my other very strange dreams, I find strength in that narratives have always had some sort of resilience — in this dream, with the support of a friend, I overcame that fear to try something new.
I question the meaning behind being a child and not sensing fear or danger when seeing something this gory but as an adult, I try to interpret this as seeing through appearance and understanding the underlying message even if the outward behaviour/ appearance is “typically unpleasant”.
Lucy (The Eggcademic) [she/her] wants to thank you for reading to the end on this weird piece, even if it might put you off of eating lasagna for quite some time. Also published this under TBiN because oh boy, wouldn’t want another editor to have to review this and not have the choice of not reading the content because uh, yeah.