...begins with a sound. It is a distinct and quite unpleasant sound, of footsteps coming closer. From inside the dungeon these footsteps sound like slaps; sometimes I imagine slabs of raw beef are falling on the flagstones. One, two, three, four, five, six chunks of moist sirloin lying on the ground in a bloody mess. Then silence. Hopeful on my side of the dungeon door, indifferent, I imagine, in the corridor. The silence lasts three seconds, at the most. On the other side of the door a key is inserted into the lock, turned, then a chain is pulled and the small metal tray in the door falls open towards you like a drawbridge. In the next instance, your provisions for the day, a jug of water and a bowl of something, a stew or soup, appear. You have exactly ten seconds to take the food off the tray before the tray draws up, closing the opening. The chain rattles, the key turns, leaves the lock. The sound of footsteps resumes. This time the sound has an entirely different tone; this time, sand is squeaking underfoot, on a beach somewhere, in an open, sunny place. One, two, three, four, five, six sandy squeaks, squeaking away until nothing but the sound of your own breathing remains. The entire exercise lasts exactly two minutes. Then it’s just you. To do with yourself as you see fit. And what do you do with yourself for the rest of your dark, quiet day?

You eat. You drink. You sleep. You exercise, walk, stretch — your body and your mind. You pee creatively in your bucket; you’re making patterns, percussive and melodic both, just to hear a sound, a something other than the voice in your head. When you’re done peeing, you daydream. Day and night, you let your imagination run wild ‘cause you’re stuck in this very dark, quiet place with only your thoughts, your bladder and three plastic utensils to entertain yourself with.

I was in the dungeon for exactly forty-five days. Only two things worth mentioning happened during that time. Day twenty I managed a thousand push-ups, and day twenty-nine I found a message scratched into the floor under the pee bucket. I glimpsed the words, when the bucket slot opened and the bucket was pulled out to be emptied, in a pool of light in the spot the bucket had occupied. PLANET OF DREAMS GO WEST. Then the bucket returned and the slot closed, and I was left thinking I had dreamt the whole thing. But I hadn’t dreamt it; the message was there two days later, when the bucket was emptied again. This time I saw it as clear as day: PLANET OF DREAMS GO WEST scratched into the stone, quite neatly, in small precise letters, clearly visible from where I crouched close to the light streaming in from the corridor.

For some reason I felt like laughing. Of course, outwardly I didn’t make a sound as making noise was strictly forbidden, punishable by a reduction in rations. I couldn’t risk it so I kept quiet. I gazed at the letters, memorizing them like a poem. PLANET OF DREAMS GO WEST. I wondered about what it meant and who put it there. Was it a message? Was this something I should take seriously? It may have been put there especially for me. Or maybe it was nothing, just a by-product of some poor bugger’s diseased imagination because losing your mind was on the cards for anyone stuck here long enough, and there have been plenty who had gone mad in this dungeon. Eventually they all died in here, alone and stark raving mad. It was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to me. And who knew, perhaps this was my first step towards the inevitable; perhaps this message was all in my head and I was already imagining things. 

She stood in the doorway, framed like a portrait. A young girl on the brink of womanhood. She stood there, looking like a flower about to bloom, looking fresh, smelling good. She looked at me and I felt I couldn’t breathe, she was so beautiful. Then she stepped inside the room and took my hand. Her touch was electrifying. Welcome to your Planet of Dreams, Handsome.

I imagined this pleasant scenario over and over, each time adding a new and more delicious detail until I could no longer stand it. It was a productive way to spend my time, that endless stretch of nothingness I had on my hands to mould into whatever I wanted. But I only wanted Her ‘cause she alone made sense to me in my situation: I was nineteen, a convicted felon condemned to rot in a dungeon, and PLANET OF DREAMS GO WEST was the only thing that really kept me from dying on the inside.

Day forty-five began like any other. I woke up as usual, at some point in time in a new day. In the dungeon nothing changes. You lie still, you move, use the bucket, drink some water. You know where everything is, you how to move to get to it, without spilling anything, without doing damage. You do all that then you’re free to do whatever you want until a sound from the outside, the sound of feet connecting with the flagstones, alerts you to your work. It’s counting time. Forty-five, forty-five, forty-five, you tell yourself. It’s meal number forty-five. Day forty-five. You’re nineteen years old.

On the other side of the door a key is inserted into the lock, turned, a chain is pulled and the small metal tray in the door falls open towards you. Light bursts at you through the narrow opening. You blink. PLANET OF DREAMS GO WEST. Another blink. The meal appears. A plastic bowl filled with stew. You take it off the tray, the tray draws up, closes the opening, darkness falls. The chain rattles, the key turns, vacates the lock. The footsteps resume, then fade away, leaving you to spend day forty-five as you choose.

I had the strangest dream. I dreamt I was inside a helicopter, flying somewhere. It wasn’t a smooth ride. The copter was shaking. There was a lot of noise. My ears buzzed and I felt like I should swallow. Then my ears popped. It was an acutely unpleasant sensation, one that I was keen to end, so I opened my eyes and saw that I was inside a helicopter, flying somewhere.

The helicopter was huge and there was a cage in the middle of it, and I was in it, along with a whole bunch of other people, all inmates like me, piled up like eggs in a wire basket, with not quite enough space to fit everyone. It was at this point that I realized I really was awake. My ears really had popped and I really was uncomfortable. And that’s not all; I realized that I was shackled to another inmate. My left hand was handcuffed to the right hand of a grey-haired flabby white guy with a squinty eye. He was at least twice my age and mean-looking. He squinted at me and grinned, but said nothing. Nobody in the cage spoke. Some people were asleep and the rest were sitting there handcuffed to their neighbours, quietly wondering at the situation like I was.

At each outside corner of the cage sat a guard, armed to the teeth. The copter was buzzing like a mad bunch of bees and the noise was so loud I felt my head would explode. It was very hard to think, under the circumstances. So I sat there observing my surrounds through half-closed eyes, trying to remain calm. I observed that my neighbour was not asleep, though he appeared to be. Keeping his eyes closed, he was slowly pulling at the length of the chain between us, drawing it closer to him in a very deliberate, methodical fashion. I realized he was counting the links on the chain. Eventually our hands touched and he released the chain and I don’t know why but I started doing the same; I pulled the chain over to my side and eventually counted a hundred links, which I estimated was about half a meter long. Maybe a bit more. So there was a bit of a distance between us, which was good ‘cause my neighbour did not fill me with confidence. He looked kind of crazy, grinning to himself with his eyes closed. He frightened me, it was that simple and I turned my head away from him to keep myself together.

I lost track of time; I may have even fallen asleep, or even unconscious, who knows; I felt nauseated, really weird in my head and stomach when I woke up, which is when I realized the copter was descending. I had no idea where we were; all I saw around us was sand, endless stretches of it. I was terrified. Suddenly the craft stalled midair and then something totally unexpected happened: the helicopter floor underneath the cage opened! It was such a surreal moment nobody even made a sound. We were stunned. I looked down and saw that we were about five to ten meters above the ground. The copter was shaking now and the guards were no longer sitting idly outside the cage but had their rifles at the ready, pointing at us as if we posed a danger. It was really quite surreal, this scene, quite bizarre and very scary now that the cage began to move downwards, through the hole in the floor, with us inside, scared stiff. Nobody moved or said anything; the entire operation was proceeding in grim silence barring the helicopter noise which grew even louder, now that we were underneath it.

It was windy outside. The cage was descending quickly, swaying in the wind like a paper lantern. At this point everybody grasped that we needed to brace ourselves for impact so everyone gripped the rails behind them and put their head down. We hit the ground, releasing a cloud of dust which temporarily blinded me. The air was full of sand and I found I couldn’t breathe so I clamped my free hand over my mouth and nose and was finally able to take a breath. The cage lifted and hit the ground again, then dragged along the ground a bit. It was a scary moment; people were screaming as we were knocked about in the cage like skittles. Then the cage stalled then jerked upwards and began to ascend just as the bottom of the cage opened and we rolled out of the cage as one man and hit the ground in a heap.

I lay on my back, stunned. I couldn’t move but I could see now and I perceived the cage stalled again and was hanging above us; the floor panel, which had come loose with the impact, was swinging above our heads dangerously close so everyone lay still not daring to raise a finger, but one guy copped it regardless. Knocked unconscious, the fellow lay there in the dust, bleeding from his cracked skull as the cage floor panel swung above us for the next few moments before it began ascending. It was being pulled back into the copter which was higher now, so high that it was hard to see the guards inside. I watched the cage until it disappeared inside the craft. Then the floor gap closed and the helicopter took off. It went behind the dunes pretty quickly, and soon you could no longer hear it. Then there was just me and the other inmates, lying in the sand, in the middle of nowhere.

Today you’re hungry, inexplicably so ‘cause there is no reason you should be. You’ve just woken up, you haven’t done your push-ups, sit-ups, you haven’t even been to visit Her. But you’re young. So you pull the plastic cover off the stew bowl; it’s a good day today ‘cause there’s meat in your bowl today. You smell it; the smell hits you in the face, stinging hot, like a slap. It’s a beef stew, a real treat. You set about eating it. You chew very slowly, savoring all five pieces, of meat and potatoes, then you slurp up what’s left and find some beans at the bottom, hiding in the gravy. It is a good, hearty meal and you feel happy. After the meal, you make yourself comfortable in your nest of straw and you go west, to meet Her, at the PLANET OF DREAMS. It’s a good day.

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