A dream of my life

I was on a train. I was near the front, in the second carriage. There were beds, and I lived there with mostly other gay men, like Daniel and Ricardo. There were a bunch of other people, but I don’t remember who they were. I was reading a book which said that faggots tend to stay in corridors, out of the way from everything and everybody. Marcus had journeyed around the train before, and I asked him if that is true. Did faggots hide in their corners? And he said yes, that there is a general population, and they were very different from the people in the front carriages. They were more rowdy and sexually dangerous. I was intrigued. I felt I’d spent so much of my time hiding in corners away from "people." I wanted to know what everyday men were like. The people in the front carriages were all very nice, of course, sort of like people you’d meet as coworkers in an office. I felt I was treated so well, and wondered why I’d ever want to leave the front carriages. 

Later that evening, I was washing dishes, and there were many to clean. It was an unending task, something you do over and over again but is never finished. I kept washing and washing and I wasn’t annoyed, until Linda R., who I thought was my friend, came and dropped her dishes in the sink without saying anything or even acknowledging me, and in that instant I went to the emergency exit and walked off the train. I saw Andrew. I hadn’t known he was even on the train, and it seemed he was running away from me. Raven was there too and she was running ahead of him. I was tired but knew I couldn’t let them slip away from me. I ran after them, caught up to Andrew, stopped him, and then raven too. 

I talked to Andrew. And he told me, “You were in prison. You were running around in circles for all eternity, privileged in the upper carriages, but you were imprisoned nonetheless.” I asked him how I could escape. He said, “you did. You have to enter into the darkness. You can’t keep running around in circles like a rat. You want to do what feels fine in the moment, what’s most comfortable, but you can’t be trapped forever.” I told him I wanted to help people; help them see the prison they’re in and do my best to break the prison down. He told me, “You will try, but that will happen regardless of whether or not you help. You see how we’re far into the dark and snow, and we can see the train from here? Imagine the train is on fire and there are people running away from it; the chaos and death and confusion that will be caused. Would you rather be in the middle of that? Or far away from it like we’re here now? It’s thankless work, drudgery, and you might be killed anyway. Is that what you want?” I told him I wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted, but that I wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave the prison yet. I’m not sure why, but I felt I still had work to do there. He said, “alright, what will happen is what happened tonight. You will be so tired of the work, thankless, tired of the people, ungrateful and cruel, that you will come back. Raven and I will be waiting for you. And then we’ll all escape.”