My Husband’s Dream Woman Will Outlive Me

3D-Printing the World and Other Dreams

Dream-me is acting all batshit again. Husband is mad, asks why I can’t act normal in his dreams at least? I’m not sure how to respond. Honestly, I kind of like the idea of dream-me pulling stunts. The last time real-me did anything out of the ordinary was when I used the 3D printer at work to make a model of my left boob. I use the boob as a dish to hold keys, paperclips, spare change, etc. Husband says it freaks him out. It’s supposed to be ironic or something, since that boob no longer exists. 

Unclear if dream-me has use of both breasts. Note to ask husband. 

Apparently dream-me has a bit of a wild side. Which is funny, since husband thinks I’m too passive in real life. Too much of a procrastinator. Let’s make a bucket list! he says. YOLO and all that! He gets out a block of Post-it notes and waits for my ideas. I try to explain that it’s not passivity on my part, it’s survival. (Bad word choice, he says.) Dying is actually pretty exhausting, I don’t know how other people have the energy to do the whole bucket list thing. My plan is just to hang out until the end? Husband isn’t too happy about it. He asks am I really going to procrastinate death, too? I tell him that Death Procrastinator would be a good band name. 

In comparison, dream-me is the freakin’ energizer bunny. Husband’s latest dream involves me burning everything I own. I’m sitting pretzel-style on the living room rug with an armory of candlesticks. (So romantic.) I pick up my possessions one by one and singe them over the flames like a real pyro. Birthday cards and sweaters and houseplants. Husband says that dream-me even burns the rug, which technically belongs to him. He’s so outraged by this that he gets up in the middle of the night to check that it’s still intact. 

Crazy, I say, though now I’m thinking that dream-me has a point. I mean, no need for the fire hazard—our building alarm goes off even from burnt toast—but I don’t think I want husband and other well-wishers poking around my things once I’m gone. My old diaries, photos, mixtape CDs from ex-boyfriends, personalized World’s Best mugs, sexy lingerie I wore like maybe once—it’s all got to go. Once husband leaves for work, I sit on his living room rug and start bagging it all up. I save only a love letter from husband and some tax documents. 

It’s official: dream-me is smarter than I am. 

When husband gets home, he doesn’t put his keys in the 3D breast dish, but I let it go. I don’t want to annoy him. I need more info about what dream-me has been up to. Luckily, everybody loves to talk about their dreams, even husband. He tells me dream-me’s wackiest exploits, which are less useful than I imagined in preparing for the afterlife. In the last few weeks, dream-me has taken to biting people as a greeting, hijacking metro cars, and planting plastic gnomes in all the neighbors’ yards. We should make a drinking game for dream-you, says husband with a yawn. 

I tell him I’ll put it on the bucket list.

Secretly, I’m hoping that dream-me will send real-me an important message via husband. I haven’t been sleeping much anyways, so I watch him at night. While I’m waiting, I do crossword puzzles and draft semi-inspirational emails for friends and family. It takes a few nights, but finally husband gasps awake and I hit the jackpot. 

Dream-you is 3D-printing the world, he says. 

What do you mean? I ask.

Like the boob, he says, but worse. 

Intriguing, I think, except I don’t really understand the logistics of it. I ask husband to clarify how dream-me manages this. Can skyscrapers and donuts and trees be put through a 3D-printer? Husband is reluctant to give details, turns over and falls back asleep. I mull it over and decide that dream-me is a genius. I could go into my old office tomorrow and start 3D-printing more shit. I’d start with my heart, I think, that would be a romantic gesture for husband. He could put it on the coffee table and use it as a conversation starter. 

Next, I could try to recreate the whole world, though I probably won’t have time. (Doc says three months.) But I could at least preserve some things in one-thousand-year plastic for husband. I could even make a 3D-printed dog to keep him company. And before husband snuffs it, he could 3D-print his heart too and set it on the coffee table and there our hearts would remain forever or at least until the sun got too hot and melted them back into red goop. There’s nothing normal about ceasing to exist, I think. But dream-me gets it. In the end, we procrastinate death as long as we can.