Finding My Own Ball 找回自己的球

I dreamed that I was a young woman, and my boyfriend was a baseball player. I would watch his games and accompany him during practice. Worried that I might get bored while he trained, he told me that the team needed people to retrieve balls during practice—and that the job even came with a salary.

At first, I didn’t quite understand what the job entailed. Later, I followed another girl to a grassy park, where we wandered around chatting. Suddenly, I saw a ball roll into some bushes, so I went in and retrieved three balls.

The girl then told me that some of the balls belonged to other people, so I didn’t need to pick them up. It turned out that my boyfriend had signed me up for the official ball-retrieval job with his team, and they assigned specific balls to specific people. Out of the three I had picked up, only one was actually mine to collect, while the other two belonged to others.

I thought, Oh, I see. That makes sense. Then, I realized that each ball had a tracker, and I had an electronic map in my hand. My map would show me where my assigned balls landed, and once I retrieved them, I could get paid by the team. I thought, This job isn’t hard, and it actually seems kind of interesting.

Later, my boyfriend came over to see me, and the other girl walked away. He was holding a bottle of Coca-Cola. When he got distracted, I sneakily took a sip of his Coke.

I told my boyfriend that I felt like I could do more, so he led me to a computer. He showed me two tasks, the first being data entry. I thought, This is incredibly easy.

Then, I noticed that a girl had come up behind me to teach me. She introduced herself as "Xiuling," and I immediately felt she looked familiar. I wracked my brain trying to remember where I had seen her before—then suddenly, it hit me: she was my college classmate! Xiuling told me that this used to be her job. I told her, This is simple. I can do it.

Later, my boyfriend taught me another task: entering a range of numbers into the system, which would then display where the balls were located. My job was to assign people to retrieve them. At first, I entered too broad a range, which generated too much data and made assigning tasks difficult. I then adjusted my approach, assigning balls in batches of 20 numbers. I thought, This is easy too. I’ve got it.

The scene then shifted to my boyfriend and me taking a walk. Someone approached us and asked for recommendations on fun places to visit in Taipei. I told them, "Xin Park" is a spacious area where you can fly kites. But in reality, Taipei’s Xin Park had been gone for a long time, and kite-flying wasn’t allowed there.

In my dream, a memory suddenly surfaced—I seemed to recall flying a kite somewhere near a riverbank. Was it Youth Park? When I was little, I think my dad once took us there to fly kites. Or maybe it was the Dazhi Riverbank, where my younger brother Adolf took our whole family before he passed away? I remembered that you could fly kites there too…

夢見我是個年輕女生，男朋友是棒球選手。我會看他打球，陪他練球。他怕我在他練球時覺得太無聊，跟我說球隊練球時，需要有人去撿球，還有工資可賺。

一開始我搞不清楚這是什麼工作，後來我跟著一個女生，來到公園草地隨意走走。我們一邊聊天，突然我看到球滾過來，滾到樹叢裡，我去樹叢裡撿了三顆球出來。

那個女生跟我說，有的是別人的球，我不需要撿。原來是我男友幫我在球隊登記了撿球的工作，球隊會去分派哪個球由誰來負責撿。其中只有一顆球是分派給我，所以我只要撿我的球就好，其他兩顆是別人的球。

我心想「原來如此，那這樣我就懂了。」後來我還發現，每顆球上面都有追蹤器，然後我手上有個電子地圖。反正就是我的地圖會顯示我的球落在哪裡，我去把球撿回來，就可以跟球隊領錢。我心想這工作不難，好像還有點意思。

後來我男朋友過來找我，那女生就走開，我男友手上還拿了一瓶可口可樂。後來他好像要去做什麼事，我就偷喝了他的可口可樂。

我跟男友說我覺得我可以多做些其他事情，他就帶我來到一個電腦前。他教了我兩個功能，一個就是資料輸入，我心想這工作超級簡單。

後來發現我的後方站了一個女生來教我，她說她是 "秀玲"。我覺得她好眼熟，用力想我何時見過她，突然想起她是我大學同學。秀玲說這是她之前在做的事，我跟她說「這很簡單，我會。」

後來我男友又來教我另外一個功能，就是輸入一個範圍的號碼，然後系統就會告訴我這些球在哪裡，我就要去分派由誰去撿球。一開始我輸入的編號範圍太大，資料太多，很難分派。後來我就改成每 20 個編號為範圍來做分派。我心想「這也很簡單，我會。」

接著場景變成我跟男友在散步。有人來問我們台北市哪裡有好玩的地方。我跟他說「"新公園" 場地很空曠，可以放風箏。」可是台北新公園其實早就沒有了，而且也不能放風箏。

在夢裡，我突然有個印象，好像曾經在像是河堤的地方放風箏。是青年公園嗎？小時候好像爸爸有帶我們去那裡放過風箏，還是說是小弟 Adolf 生前帶我們全家去的那個大直河堤，那邊好像也可以放風箏…