Cali Watts is struggling to come of age in a life saturated with indifference. Stealing almost worthless things isn’t helping. Neither is dreaming of the dead.

Her parents named her Calico Watts, a name she hates as much as life itself. Growing up a child of divorce in Weldon Spring, Missouri has left Cali numb, without identity or purpose, sapped of any ambition for the future and even for the one thing all teenagers crave: freedom.

Cali’s mother is not lacking ambition, but it’s all toxic, devoting herself to the level-climbing requirements of a beauty products pyramid scheme called Dream Life. Cali’s father has, post-divorce, found a way to devalue freedom by devolving into a pothead with a girlfriend and secret grow operation. Cali’s best friend, Stacey, has discovered that her own physical attributes are good for some attention from others more worthy than Cali, including, significantly, the Howell High School science teacher.

For Cali, the act of caring about anything has become a challenge. Stealing nearly worthless things from the Ninety-Nine Cent Store has not helped. Fear of failing out of school no longer holds the same current. Alienation and estrangement have become weather.

Two people have punched through the numbness. Taylor Boss, easily the most attractive, well-liked student of Howell High, never had any relevance or interest to Cali. At least, not until Taylor was found naked and shot to death in an old duck shack along the banks of the Mississippi.

Damien Alvarez, the Howell High safety officer has a habit of catching Cali’s eye every time they pass each other in the crowded hall. It may or may not be flirting, Damien’s looks are too subtle to tell, but it is certainly attention. Damien sees her. That matters. It also matters that Damien was the last person to see Taylor Boss alive.

'This is the Dream' is a novella included in a larger work of short fiction of the same name – 'This is the Dream' – by Owen Thomas.