We all have dreams.

They spring from our lives. They come from our experiences, the stuff of dreams, and reassemble in our sleeping minds, extrapolate beyond our conscious control and sometimes go in directions we would not necessarily choose to take awake.

Often they continue what we went through the day before, what we saw, like a movie, television, fresh in our minds as we drift into darkness and cross the border into somnolence.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. On TV, because I’m not yet ready to brave the theaters, no matter how much I want to. Being among people is still curated and constrained.

I’ve also been reading. Actual books. Magazines and articles. Sometimes about the news of the day, which is getting worse. Sometimes about education, teaching, which I did forever, and now I’m reviewing my life.

So I can piece together why I might be dreaming certain things.

But I have another problem. I can’t always tell when I’m awake. My mind looks around and says, “Surely you must be dreaming!”

I started keeping a notebook by my bed so I could write down my dreams before they got away. Too often they dissipate and are lost forever and I might say, “What was I thinking?”

I imagine dialogs with people who aren’t there.

They say, “You need help!”

I answer, “We all do.”

Anyway, as I was saying, I write things down in the hope that someone might read them and that might do some good.

In my dreams I can be several people at once.

The students gathered around the teacher.

“Tell us a story!”

The teacher begins, “Once upon a time…”

“No! We heard that one! Give us something new!”

“Alright, children. Long long ago…”

Groans.

“There was this man walking along. His hands were tied. He was at the end of his rope, being dragged by a soldier who looked Roman.

“The man was wearing almost nothing because he was poor, a man of the people. He couldn’t afford anything.

“The soldier was the lower level of Power, and there were a lot of captives strung along the rope, each one tied as the rope went around their wrists and continued back to the next one.

“It was a long line. Like a chain gang, only rope.

“They stopped to rest at night and slept on the ground. The man worked the rope free from around one hand that could then untie the other hand when no one was looking.

“They got up in the morning after a restless night and continued the march. The same soldier was in charge. He noticed the free hand but didn’t say anything. He sympathized.

“Other soldiers like officers came up and down the line to check on things. Some were on a horse.

“There was another string of captives ahead of his, led by another different soldier. It went on and on and stretched for miles.

“The marching soldiers kept on marching, eyes straight ahead.

“I surreptitiously loosened my other wrist, I knew by now that I was the captive and could say so, and looped the rope around the branch of a tree limb lying by the road, so it would drag along and keep the tension in the rope and feel like me so nobody would know I had freed myself unless they turned around which they never did because they were only following orders.

“So I untied the man behind me and looped his part of the rope snagging around another dragging tree branch, and then there were two.

“We freed everybody in our line on the rope and we all jumped into the bushes to remain out of sight.

“Then a soldier who was higher up like a low level officious officer came back to check on things and saw our soldier leading a line of dragging logs.

He said, “What’s this?”

Our soldier turned around to see and said, “I don’t know, sir.”

The higher up soldier said, “I’ll have you court martialed to death for letting all your prisoners escape!”

Our soldier got brave and said, “Oh yeah? Then I’ll turn you in because you were supposed to check the knots in the rope and obviously were derelict in your duty!”

So the petty officer guy pulled out his sword and struck down our soldier so he couldn’t rat him out, and then a higher up officer came down the line to see what was the hold up.

He sized up the situation and sent word up the line to the General who came down in person on a horse, looking all shiny in gold armor.

The General looked things over and said, “What’s this? Explain yourself!”

The evil petty officer groveled and said, “I had to kill him because he let his prisoners escape.”

Our soldier was lying dying on the ground and said with his last breath, “It’s his fault because he didn’t check the knots.”

The General got mad and said, “So! Try to fool me, will you?” and he pulled out his sword and cut off the bad soldier man’s head, and our soldier on the ground died with a smile.

Meanwhile, me and my escaped buddies were all watching from the bushes, and then we went on to join the crowds of real people and we toppled the regime.”

My students were still sitting clustered around me with big eyes and said, “Is any of this true?”

And I said, “It’s up to you.”

The End?