Working Through

[liralen]

I dreamed this morning of being a prisoner whose term had come to an end.



I was escorted to the entrance, handed my things, told to change back into the clothing they handed me, musty with stale smoke and sweat and years of storage in plastic bags. The few hundred dollars cash that had been in my wallet was still there. They let me use the phone, since my out-of-date and expired cellphone's battery was dead as a doornail, and they wanted me out of there.

My brother didn't answer my call.

The taxi service dropped me off at the storage units where I'd told my brother to put what little stuff I'd left in the shitty apartment I'd had before I'd done time. I didn't know if he'd actually done what I asked as he'd never said that he had. He hadn't much talked to me the whole time I was in. But the key let me into the security gate around the storage units.

I went to my unit, put in the key, and it turned. The door opened, and there was all my stuff. The relief nearly floored me. My brother had paid the rent like I'd asked. In front was my construction work boots, tool belt, nail gun, hard hat, and electric screw driver and batteries. All neatly arranged the way I always did after work. The clothing bureau was to one side, as was the half-full hamper and a dump of boxes from the damned apartment. I changed right in the unit, something I'd done many times, and stuffed the prison clothing with its memories of one night of rage that had blown away four years, into the hamper. I opened the bureau, tossed the dustiest stuff on top into the hamper, and put the next layer on, clean cloth against my skin, and put another change of clothing into my day bag that lay on top of the bureau.

I knew how being homeless worked. The stuff that I needed locked up and safe was in here, everything I took with me would be at risk. I left the work equipment in here, until I found a lead on a union job, it would be safer here, no matter where I stayed. The shelters were the worst for losing stuff, but cheap hotels were no better.

But I had all the things I'd accumulated from Before, and I was ready to face the world outside again.

Comments

[incandescens]

That is interesting. And a very coherent-sounding dream.

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

Are you going through or facing any major transitions in your life right now? It sounds like a transition dream to me (but what do I know?......)

[kjc.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Very detailed. Reminds me of the idea that dreamspace is shared & sometimes we cross wires with other people.

You get smells in your dreams!? That's the one thing I don't get... no matter how vivid it is, how physically painful (I've had dreams where I've woken up swallowing a scream of pain for a sensation that was no longer there), I never smell anything... (I am now thinking about the other senses - sights, sounds, sensations are all yes, but taste? I'm frequently *trying* to eat something & I keep getting interrupted.)

[tagryn]

I think everyone else has covered the analysis/discussion thoroughly already, just wanted to say thanks for sharing. Nice writing.