dream

We crossed under the dam wall, the gates being open, and huge and thunderous water descending. The question was whether the clay walls could withstand the water pressure. We exited a doorway on the side, crawling on our bellies. Outside was thick shrub, grass and light. Reversing in the opposite direction the boy was able to shed his clothes and became new again.

The new job had been turned into a sweat shop, all due to Western influences. New rules governing behaviour had been layed down. They were multiple and stringent. They concerned how you could address a person, which had to be according to the rules now. Aspects of speech that we had never been offended about before, we had a right to be offended by, now. Actually, it was our duty to keep track of these things, and play according to the rules. The rules meant that we could be treated with impunity, but that it would seem to be something we had all agreed to allow.

The woman towering up above my head began insulting me. She had been told what sort of person I was, and suddenly for the first time, I saw the potted version of myself she saw. "You say you are a fighter -- something great -- but I've seen through you in my revisionary analysis, enough to know that you are mute!"

I tried to speak up: "It's not that I am saying that I'm anything. I just have to have something to talk about whilst I am doing my job." But she kept talking over me, laying down the rules, and then she spat: "You haven't said anything!"

So I decided to run away.   I was breathless. I ran past all the seedy and outdated lunchbar joints in the arcade underground. I ran up the flight of stairs. I ran past all the things about the city that I wanted to leave behind. I bumped into a girl from the past, at the train station, and she immediately hugged me. I thought, "fancy meeting her here. I would never have gone this way, and met up, under normal circumstances." I kept running -- escaping the stuff  that had made me despair.