It’d been a while since I’d invested in any new dreams, and there’s only so many times I could ride a white furry dragon across a magical land. The store was a new one – Strawberry Ice Dream: For a better sleep, stop counting sheep. Squeezed into Middleton Hall, its pink and white storefront sat between Bespoke Nose and Pete’s Traditional Old-Fashioned Hoverboards.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ The girl looked up from her tablet and smiled.

I’ve always been bad at shopping, but without an updated brain scan, it’s hard to order dreams online. The code behind one person’s perfect Martian hike might be experienced by another as having the bottom half of your leg chewed off by a triceratops. At college, I’d learned this the hard way, and I still can’t see a portrait of Henry VIII without shuddering.

‘Well, I keep having the same recurring dream.’

The girl nodded. ‘Have you considered something involving riding a white furry dragon across a magical land?’

Perhaps she recognised my pained expression.

‘Hmmm… a red furry dragon?’

I shook my head.

‘You know, if you’re looking for something different, research has shown that if we dream of our collective past, we actually become more mindful of the present.’

She tapped her fingers and turned her tablet towards me. It showed a busy painting, yet somehow I found it soothed me.

‘Fionnuala Boyd,’ the girl was saying. “Fiction, Non-fiction and Reference.”

Three dreamlike figures – a girl and two boys, their eyes averted – basked in spring-fresh sunlight, appearing both part of and separate from the world around them.

‘When was this painted?’

‘Long ago, before the pandemic or the dome. This was how they dreamed of our city; by painting it because they didn’t have dream organs.’

The painting exuded a sunny pioneer’s optimism of a world born fresh and new, where reflective windows merged with freshly levelled roads, clouds like cotton wool and water like glass.

‘Did people really swim in the lake?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Who knows what they really did. I mean, not to put you off, but people used to sell clothing in these shops. People would come in, try stuff on, in little cubicles next to each other.’

I shuddered.

‘But it wasn’t all bad – and a lot of our customers love this dream.’

Out of interest, I asked, ‘What else do you have in this genre?’

The girl chewed at her bottom lip. ‘Well, there’s one about concrete cows, but that’s really for a much more specific customer. I mean, if you think…?’

‘Oh no,’ I said quickly, shaking my head. ‘I think I’d rather start with the Boyd.’

The girl smiled. ‘Of course. Ummm… for fifty credits extra we could add some blue furry dragons?’

‘No, no, I’m done with the dragons.’

/Of course, we have to ask./ The girl slid her finger across the screen. ‘And how would you like to pay today? Barcode or implant?’