I had this dream last night. In it, I was not played by myself, and my family was not played by themselves. The words in the prologue were literally in the dream.

  • Prologue *

The walls were groaning and sighing. But they were not cries of pain – they were cries of relief, for the walls were rearranging themselves. They struggled to find a comfortable position in which to lie. Their lowest energy state. For all but the most carefully-balanced stones, this meant lying in a heap on the ground. Something had recently come to upset the balance of these stones.

Often, the most comfortable shapes for rocks are not the most comfortable shapes for humans. This was the case for Ryan, who was laying right there, at the lowest-energy point for one of these rocks.

It seems that I had been sent to an insane asylum for a crime that I had committed. It’s much like being sent to jail, except that there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get out – you stay in there until the doctors decide you’re cured. The crime I had been put in there for was relatively minor and I had already been in for twice as long as if I had been deemed to have committed my crime intentionally.

I decided I had to escape. I had a plan, but it involved gathering large quantities of several different types of medication. So I stopped taking my meds, instead collecting them in a secret pouch on a shoelace on the floor drain in my cell. I also did things for people in exchange for their meds. Every time I had the opportunity, I’d mop the floor for people, or do the dishes, and they’d give me the meds they were supposed to take. I hid these in my floor drain as well.

After this had been going on for some time, I began to become irritable. I would shout at people. I found this so satisfying that I began to shout even when nobody was around. I would walk around the room, waving my arms and shouting.

They found me doing this one day, and decided that they thought it was something they needed to cure. So they took me into another room and talked to me about what was wrong.

I knew they were going to give me more medication, so I thought about what ingredients I was missing, and what symptoms I would have to imitate in order to get those meds. So I told them that I was acting the way I was because I was controlled by people seven miles away, with a thought-broadcaster. They gave me a pill, which I hid under my tongue.

The next day, it was visiting day. My family came during lunch time, so I got to eat with them instead of in the main dining hall. I took my sister’s food as well as my own, explaining that they never feed me enough, and she could get more food once she was back out.

My behavior seemed to make them uncomfortable for some reason, so they left early and I was escorted back to the cafeteria.

I saw the way people were standing, and understood what it meant. The people in that group were standing in the shape of an arrow. That pointed to another group of people, who were standing in the shape of an arrow, and so on. I followed the arrows with my eyes and my mind, and found that they were pointing to the corner of the building, and the music teacher’s room.

I understood that this meant that it was time to act.

I gathered up my pouch and followed the arrows to the music room. I ground up the pills and mixed them together in ways that they were not supposed to be mixed, until they became the explosive powder that I needed. I placed my bomb on the wall and lit the fuse.

I had blown a hole in the wall. I was free!

I began to walk away from the asylum. It was strange. It had been so long since I’d been free that I’d forgotten what one does when one is free.

The nearest place that free people go to was the mall, so I decided to go there too.

As I walked, I became concerned that someone was following me, but I dared not turn around to look, for fear that they were someone from the asylum and that they would see my face and report me and I would lose my freedom. I kept on walking, faster. If I heard them move to my right, I would look to the left. I was careful to keep my face turned away from them.

When I got to that mall, I found that all the people there were potential enemies in the same way. Any one of these people could turn me in. I began to walk around, trying to enjoy my freedom.

I saw P’arry there. He said hi to me, but I worried that he was wondering how I had gotten out of the asylum. I needed to convince him that I was here legitimately. Out of my pocket, I pulled a piece of paper – a release form. I waved it at him, saying “Look! I’m released! I’m free now!” He looked skeptical and more than a little upset. What could be upsetting him? I looked at the paper, and I found that the three spots for signatures – patient, doctor, guardian – were all blank. “Sign it!” I encouraged. He quickly signed it where it said “Guardian”, and I decided to walk away so as to not alert his suspicion any further.

I was very hungry, because they never fed me well there. I decided that to have a full meal would be an excellent way to celebrate my freedom. I walked to the food court and looked at all their food. But it was all so unfamiliar. It had been so long since I had eaten it. I didn’t know what these things were supposed to taste like, and didn’t know if I could enjoy them anymore.

I ordered a slice of pizza, but when I got it, I just stared at it. I didn’t know how to eat it.

Then I remembered that it was still visiting day at the asylum. Perhaps, now that I was free, I could walk in and out like a visitor. I could eat at the cafeteria that I understood.

I walked back there, and walked into the cafeteria, and found the people standing in the arrows. I followed it to the room in the corner, and I planted my bomb. I lit the fuse.

The walls groaned and sighed. But they were not cries of pain – they were cries of relief, for the walls were rearranging themselves. They struggled to find a comfortable position in which to lie. Their lowest energy state. For all but the most carefully-balanced stones, this meant lying in a heap on the ground. Something had recently come to upset the balance of these stones.

Often, the most comfortable shapes for rocks are not the most comfortable shapes for humans. This was the case for Ryan, who was laying right there, at the lowest-energy point for one of these rocks.