The Dream

I could tell I was dreaming. Something about the place just didn’t seem right, as if we were all under a microscope very small and part of something much larger than life.

I found myself a prisoner in the world's largest prison ever built. We were all encamped in a fenced area stretching for untold miles. All the prisoners suffered from extreme conditions. Abuse from the guards was common and torture was the joy of many guards.

There seemed to be no restrictions on the types of torment we were being subject to, beatings, dragging, hanging, starvation and rape. The guards were unconcerned for our well-being. The stories and horrors of Nazi camps were the closest I have ever heard of such suffering.

The guards being well dressed in uniforms and well armed with high powered rifles, handguns as well as other instruments of control. Hopelessness was our only clothing at times and despair our blankets that wrapped us throughout the night. There was never hope to be free and never dreams of escape as we have never heard of a single person finding freedom or relief. Many prisoners just waited to die or stopped trying to live and just died from starvation.

My only friend was Sam. Me and Sam shared pain and poverty. We didn’t really care for each other but it was some comfort to have a human to share the struggle with.

One day, armed guards forced us to a rehabilitation station. This was a new word for us, as we never thought rehab was an option. The atmosphere and lighting seemed to change some as we moved closer to what looked like a large fenced basketball court. The darkness that seemed evident even in noonday was faded some.

There were voices coming from the skies like the voices rats might hear while being examined by their scientists. The voices were unintelligible for the most part but occasionally I would have a glimmer of their meanings. I somehow knew they wanted us to get out of prison.

We were made to sit on two small pillows that were placed on the ground near the fence. Behind us was a duffle bag filled with something. Next to us was a picnic table with nice set of 6 chairs. This all was very odd and none of it made sense to us.

Did you dream this dream, Bill?

I did...

Part Two

Chapter 2 Escape to Destruction

After sitting for the longest ten minutes of my life, I decided to look in the duffle bag behind me. Sam was not as curious; he was just fine with his pillow and didn’t want to cause any waves in this newfound comfort. I, on the other hand, knew there was more to this new pillow, picnic table, duffle bag world and I just had to find out what it was.

There was now only one guard and he stood outside the opening of our fence without much seem for what we were doing inside. Sam protested as I opened the duffle bag but I could see his curiosity. The bag was filled with nice new clothes very clean and pressed as if just removed from their cellophane packages and all the pins taken out. I took a quick look around and hoped and assumed these were for me so I put them on. Sam did so too but with much more of the looking around part.

The guard still took no notice to us almost as if we were invisible to him. I told Sam this had to be some sort of experiment and that we should see what happened if we tried to walk past the guard. Sam was sure this couldn’t be the way to rehabilitation and we should just wait till someone comes to tell us what to do. I don’t know how I knew that we should go but it was like an intuition or something.

I got up and walked toward the fence always prepared with some lie-excuse why we got up, in case the guard asked us. As we approached the opening, the more I began to act like this was something I was supposed to be doing and walked through the fence and turned left.

Escaping the open prison, I saw the rest of the world as they live. The cities of the world were in ruin. They looked like the pictures you would see of a planet after nuclear destruction. Most of what I saw was destroyed inner cities. The people left behind were all part of different gangs who robbed and fought with each other and protected the others in their gang. The whole world lived in this high tech survival mode where laser guns and flying cars would be blasting through the skies and sick impoverished people scampered the streets doing whatever was necessary to live out the day.

I decided to return to my old gang and try to get back in where I could be protected from the chaos. I knew my old friends would be glad to see me and hear of the torments of prison. But, when I arrived, it seemed, my extended absence and new clothes drew so much fear and suspicion that I knew if I tried to stay they would eventually kill me so I headed back to the likeliest place of survival “the rehabilitation”. They just never saw someone dressed so well and definitely have never seen someone return from the camps so it had to be a trick.

Chapter 3 The Rehabilitation

I went back to the fenced area hoping not to be punished for my escape but knowing too that I probably wouldn’t be. I met up with Sam again as we somehow lost each other when I went back to my old friends. He concluded the same thing, that his only possible chance for survival must be the rehab. He seemed almost happy, still scarred from terror and hardship but now with hope and less fear. He was carrying a book and I was handed one of the same books. It was the color of soft gray stone. We would read this book and gain great insight into many wondrous things but the books were almost magical as we knew that when we finished this one an endless supply of these books awaited our reading. We began to be made free in our hearts as we read them and the light we now were gaining was helping us to see sunshine like we have never known. As each moment went by and as we read the books we moved away from the fenced area and were led to a new area just beyond the fenced rehab was a thick row of very green trees. And beyond the trees a railroad track stretching further than the eye could see in both directions.

The Silver Train and its Foundations.

The tracks were the same color as the books but a little more silvery and shiny. Just as we approached the tracks we heard the most fearful noise we have ever heard. The sound of the coming train was so great and so fearful it shook the ground miles before it reached us. We backed away from the tracks as this train would surely kill you to just be too near as it passed. The speed was astonishing and its glistening silver body was impressive; it too was the color of my book but far more polished. Its power and speed seemed almost supernatural and caused great fear to all who came near.

I felt much better now that it had passed and saw beyond the tracks was a hill sloping down made up of round stones. We stood at the top of the tracks looking down this hill and noticed that it was the foundation for this train.

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