Detention

Last night I had this crazy dream that I was in prison and you were there.

It was actually you and me and everyone we ever met. We were all in prison together.

The prison wasn't like a normal prison. It was more like a giant kindergarten. Every other wall in the common areas were painted a vibrant indigo or Halloween orange. Cells were a solid robin's egg blue for men and frosted pink for women. The walls were made of foam.

Yes, the prison was co-ed.

They made us don skin-tight orange jumpsuits (guys) or pink skin-tight jumpsuits (girls) that were made out of a velor type material the guards sarcastically called New Zealand rayon. I later discovered the suits were made of a nearly extinct strain of cotton. The material was very soft. So soft that everybody was always rubbing everyone else the way one might stroke a familiar pillow or cushion.

Life at the prison was pretty cushy and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves except the guards, who were always sealed head to foot in body armor and stood at attention at all times.

The guards sometimes carried shotguns, riot shields, automatic rifles with j-clips and grenades. They always had electric shock batons, CS gas grenades and handguns. They would kick people with their steel toed boots or strike them with heavy flashlights mostly. Everybody just learned to stay out of their way.

The guards had no sense of humor whatsoever.

The average day at the prison was broken up like this:

10:00 AM: Wake up - If you felt like it.

10:30 AM: Breakfast - Yr choice of: Pancakes with ice cream, fresh fruit (yr pick pineapple? Check! Dragon fruit? Check! Durian? Check!), bacon, sausage, eggs, toast (yr choice of bread – yes, they have everything from pumpernickel to Portuguese sweet bread as well as gluten free offerings for people with celiac), they also served juice, any choice of beer or liquor and exotic cereals.

11:00 AM– Arts and Crafts

12:30 PM - Lunch: A la carte 5 course – I ate a lot of quail.

1:30 PM– Dodgeball

2:30 PM – Special activites - Martial Arts, Ballet, Experimental painting

3:30 PM– Linear algebra / phenomenology class - they somehow combined both subjects into one science.

4:30PM – More dodgeball - They made us play a lot of dodgeball

5:30PM – Dinner – A la Carte 8 course tasting menu. I think my favorite thing was the foie gras. They made great foie gras. You always liked the fresh Atlantic salmon though.

7:00AM – Free time till lights out - Usually we went to the rooftop pool (too bad they installed twenty foot brick walls around it, though the walls were painted over by the 6th clone of Magritte. Next year they promise Rauschenberg.

12:00AM– Optional Séance - usually led by the prison's Inyanga.

1:00AM – Lights out

Most days I would just sit in my cell and smoke weed or watch tv or fuck you. Sometimes I'd watch tv, fuck you again and smoke weed all at the same time.

The television shows were all re-mastered and colorized re-runs of early sci-fi serials like Rocky Jones.

Once a month they would turn the East block into a menagerie and bring in wild animals from the outside like a Sumatran rhinoceros or a red-fronted gazelle or an Orinoco crocodile. They would demonstrate the strength of the crocodile's jaw by having it snap open coconuts. Everyone was dually impressed.

The worst part about the prison was that you couldn't call anybody or see anybody. No letters or e-mail. No one had a lawyer. Also, no one knew what they had ever been charged for or for what period they were to be detained.

Most people didn't even remember how they had been arrested.

I remember us just getting a letter at the house one day.

The best part of the prison was that it had a trampoline room and drugs were free and everywhere. Guards always left bags of really potent weed and china white heroin lying around for anyone to take. I've never tried heroin in my life, but in this dream it was great. You loved it too.

The guards left all sorts of drugs around: demoral, cocaine, 24s of beer, datura stromonium, Jack Daniels whiskey, LSD 50, speed, Quaaludes , you name it.

Nobody ever complained if you showed up to Arts and Crafts wasted.

Arts and crafts was a very generic name for the actual content of what was being taught in that class. Sometimes the lesson would be typical arts and crafts topics like embroidery or primary colour theory but sometimes the activities would be replaced by lectures on everything from Filippo Brunelleschi's theory of graphical perspective to the evolution of the semi-conductor Other classes described Kepler's Harmonices Mundi and there was an invigorating comparison of public choice theory vs. social choice theory (Who knew economics was so interesting?).

The strange part was that the same woman taught everything. She was hypnotic, whether her subject was political market failure or Liberian war brides.

I think she was the only person we met in that place who went home at night.

Some people revolted and there were punishments. One prisoner was crucified in the yard, another was fed to a visiting Beringian cave lion. Ouch!

*

The day after I told you my dream I came home and found a notice on the door of our apartment that said they had taken you to MCC Disneyland.

I called the number on the bottom of the notice, but the line was dead. I was hoping you'd give me a call at work or on my cell. Maybe you're protecting me by not calling me. Maybe you don't want me involved.

I don't know what you did. All I know is that you went to work everyday at your HR job and came home every night to watch TV and eat dinner with me.

I guess they're arresting everyone these days.

Hope I join you soon.