September 2009

“The torture’s that bad?” Davis had heard a few rumors about this prison from friends in the resistance. They’d always changed the subject as quickly as possible.

“Torture? Hah! This place is no-frills, but nobody’s mistreated, beyond the occasional manhandling. You want something to mop up your face? Here.” The geezer hoisted himself up to a sitting position and offered a phlegm-stained handkerchief.

Davis waved him off. “No thanks. I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself. Where was I? Ah, the treatment. Food’s lousy, but it won’t kill you. An hour of exercise in the yard each day. Once you break, they’ll quiz you until you’ve nothing useful left inside your skull, then they’ll leave you alone to rot.”

“I’m not breaking.”

The old man nibbled on a ragged yellow fingernail. “Everybody says that, in the beginning. In times past, a few managed to hold out, but things are more sophisticated now.”

“How so?”

“They gave you a shot during processing, right?”

“Yeah. Antibiotics.”

“That’s a lie. They made you a dead man walking. The shot kills your dreams — locks them away.”

“You’re crazy. Why would they want to do that, even if it was possible? I’m already locked up, and dreams aren’t going to get me out of here.”

“That’s how they break you. It blocks REM sleep. Dreams are how your mind restores itself. You lose your will to live, and then you lose your sanity. You’ll do whatever they ask.”

“I don’t believe it. You seem lively enough, for a crazy old coot.”

“Ah, but I know how to beat it.” The rheumy eyes widened with excitement. “Nobody else has figured it out. The interrogators think I’m just another brain-dead zombie, but I’ve got all my marbles, and I aim to keep them long after you’re stumbling around the yard, drooling on your shirt.”

Davis spit a mouthful of bloody, gritty saliva and stretched out on the vacant blanket. His eyes traced the path of a thin crack that ran across the block ceiling, and he remembered the dream he’d had every night since his arrest.

…walking with Marianne, holding hands and laughing in a field of flowers, some place far away. No fear, no police, nobody listening to every word, no one watching every movement. She smiles… she’s so beautiful, and I pull her close to me…

That’s what’s going to get me through this. They can’t take that away. I won’t let them.

But what if he’s right?

“You must be pretty tough,” Davis said, finally. “How long have you been in here?”

“Don’t remember exactly. Wasn’t long after the revolution ended. I was a college professor. Taught ancient history — mythology and cult religions. They arrested me for subversion and locked me up… said I was promoting immoral and unnatural acts. Gone through a lot of roomies since then.”

He pointed a bony finger toward the wall where the sunbeam played fitfully across the concrete blocks.

Davis counted twenty-five hash marks. “I take it you didn’t tell any of them your secret.”

“I told every single one of them. Didn’t do them any good.”

“You going to tell me?”

“If you want. Come closer. Mustn’t let the guards hear.”

Davis leaned toward his cell mate. The old man seized his head with both hands, the spidery fingers locked in a death grip around his skull, bulging eyes drilling laser-like into Davis’ own. The younger man struggled feebly, but his muscles wouldn’t respond as an unearthly power drained away his strength, his soul, his dreams.

Marianne. She faded away, along with everything else.

“It’s simple,” the old man cackled. “When your dreams are gone, the only way to survive is to take somebody else’s.”

Fred Warren resides in Kansas with his lovely wife, daughter, and two noisy dogs, and he pays the bills by flying computer-simulated airplanes for the Army. You can find links to his other stories at http://frederation.wordpress.com

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