dreams

chains

It's an old dilapidated castle. The time is night. Despite the bright moon, it is still dark inside this castle, sparsely lit with torches in their holsters high on the walls where no one could reach them. At the centre of the castle is this amphitheatre. A raised circular platform about three metres wide. I am standing in the middle. Rather, I have been made to stand there. My arms are tied with chains at the wrists;  pulled above my head and stretched. The chains extend high disappearing into the darkness. I am naked. My body weak. Yet my spirit is strong. I expect things to happen to me. There are crying, wailing, moaning noises all around. I look around and see my friends and their wives. The wives are chained to the walls. My friends have been reduced to dwarves. They stand by helpless. I can see their sweaty bodies. The wives are struggling to pull out their wrists constantly. Their wrists bloody and I can see it is painful. They moan, cry and wail without pause.

I can hear her footsteps. She emerges from the darkness walking up the rocky ramp that leads to where I stand. The ramp ends at waist level, and so I have to look up at her. She herself is dark. She is wearing black skinny pants layered with straps. Her shoulders bare. She wears a mask and I can see the white of her eye. Nothing else is clear. The eyes have concern but no mercy. The eyes seem to know all. She holds a whip and cracks it loudly to stop the noise and at once everything becomes silent. I look around. There is a brown haired, olive skinned woman hiding behind the pillars and watching.

​

The lady in black starts striking me with the whip. Each whipping is thoughtful. It looks like a punishment that has lost its meaning. I am ready to take it. She wants to execute; there is no other action that can subside her anger.

The whippings are over. She whips out at my cuffs and they are gone. My body is full of marks. The pain is good and deserved.

Another whip…the whip encircles me and tosses me into a fiery tunnel about a meter wide. The walls of the tunnel are burning hot. As I slide my whole body feels the terrible heat at the cuts made by the whip. The tunnel seems endless and all I can see is the reddish walls of the tunnel around me. At last I am out of the tunnel, but very briefly, before I enter another tunnel. The second tunnel is icy. Frozen. The surface is not smooth. Here the surface is spiky. Another downward slide through that tunnel. As the spiky ice pierces my skin, it cuts deep and tears out my flesh. My body slowly becomes numb in the coldness of the slide. When I am out of the tunnel, things become slow. The ground is several hundered feet below and I fall slowly.

It’s still night. Blue. The ground is covered in snow, vast, white and cold; dotted with black rocky projections. I fall on the softness of the snow. I feel weak; yet, I want to move. I crawl slowly.

I see this cat that resembles a wicked woman. I can see it relishes my condition. It lets out a wicked cry and comes close to me and licks my wound. It’s not the caring lick that mammals give their cubs. This cat is devouring my blood and tissue with great satisfaction. I hear a noise. I turn and see the black lady standing on a rock with the whip. Her whip flashes out and the cat is thrown out into the darkness. I hear the cat’s angry cry growing fainter.

Behind the rock where she stands, I see the olive skinned woman hiding. We can all feel the presence of each other. But there are no glances and no talking.

I turn and start crawling away. I don’t remember for how long; but it is a very long time before I reach a place in that snowy land, where stands a bed. I climb on and slip into the covers. The sheets are like white and furry like that of polar bear skin. Soft and warm and so clean.

I rest my head on someone’s lap. I look up. Mother! She runs her fingers through my hair and say ‘You have gone through so much. You need to rest.’ With that I fall asleep. The olive skinned lady is sitting at the foot of the bed watching me sleep. As I sleep, the frozen ground around the bed breaks away and drifts on water. The whole snowy land seems frozen.

There is no one around me now as my bed moves from night into the day. I wake up as the morning sun shines on my face. Still under the sheets. I see that my small island is moving towards a city that comes into view.