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« on: October 09, 2024, 08:09:05 am »
i was some old european city because i'd qualified for the world chess championship by winning, against all odds, an online tournament to determine the final qualifier. in the dream this made almost as little sense as it would in real life, like i understood that it was basically as if i'd won a particular 100m dash and thereby qualified for the olympic final. there is about as much distance between me and magnus carlsen as between me and noah lyles in their respective disciplines. anyway, i was excited, but also had no familiarity with chess tournaments and so i kept not knowing where to go. the tournament was being held in a very grand old building, and i found myself in a big room with a bunch of old tv sets scattered around, showing pre-tournament coverage. my parents were there, and we found seats on the floor to watch. humpy koneru, the indian woman who's one of the best female players in the world, was being interviewed. after watching for a few minutes, i realized i should probably be where the players were, but i didn't know where that was. i told my parents to wish me luck and walked around until i found someone who was wearing an earpiece and told her that i was supposed to be in the tournament and asked her to help me find out where to go. she led me through a tunnel to a small staircase with an extremely narrow opening at the top - narrow horizontally, not vertically - that was partly blocked by an old piece of porcelain, like a small claw-foot bathtub. i had to push it aside with my head to get through. then i was in a kind of church-like room, and saw the players sitting together on the pews. i thought to myself, this is crazy. it'll be wild if i even get a single draw against these guys. probably i'll lose every game in 20 moves. but that's okay, it'll be a cool story either way.
then i woke up. it was kind of like the, "oh no, i have an exam that i haven't studied for," dream, but without the pressure or anxiety.
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