Chained to my dreams

Dear Catherine,

I keep having this dream. The dream is always different, but the outcome is freakishly the same. I’m back there and I’m clean. Squeaky. No way I’m going to screw up this time. Derek is close by, but still out of reach. We’re in the same country at least. I’m going to a party. I’m not going to take drugs. But other people are. It’s absolutely not ok for me to have anything in my system. We all know that. One more strike and I’m out...

I never remember the detail of exactly how it happens, just the earth shattering moment when I’m stopped by the police and realise that they’ve got me again. As they’re taking me back to the station for a urine test I’m ready to tear my own heart out. My free life disappears before my eyes. How could I have slipped? I can’t tell my family. Better they think I’m dead. There are no more get out of jail cards left. The worse part is, I don’t even know whether I’m guilty or not. I feel guilty. I know they’re going to get a positive test out of me. But I don’t think I actually took anything. Or was it just one teeny tiny taste? That’s enough of course.

The next part of the dream could be anywhere. But I’m inside. Locked up. Sometimes some of the faces are the same. Sometimes I’m in a completely foreign prison, drawing only, I can imagine, on pictures in my mind from Sasha’s stories of Delhi prison, or the numerous books written by people like us. The despair is indescribable. Yet I never, ever see my parents in these dreams. Maybe it’s my mind’s way of protecting itself? Do you think my sub-conscious knows that’s territory too painful for even a dream?

I’m too ashamed to even call my lawyers.

The dreamscape chaos is mixed with a sense of déjà vu. It’s like that scene from Midnight Express when they’re walking circles chained to the wheel, sinking deeper into the maddening rut walked by their own feet. I know I’ve been here before. It’s all the same but different. I know it’s hopeless. I keep dreaming. I go to court. I stand clutching the bars watching bus loads of women released to carry on with their lives, knowing that will never be me, on that bus. I can actually feel the despondency gnawing away at my soul. It’s a sad, sad place I’m in and I’m slipping off the edge. Giving up...

Then there’s a sharp turn. It’s like a knife slices through the middle of the dream and changes its course from a point back in some premonitory corner of my mind. It’s as sudden and shocking as finding out I didn’t actually do it. Of course I didn’t do it. Who could be so crazy? And I’m walking out of the jail, heart beating faster as it settles back into my conscious body.

I know I’m awake and I cry.