Dream Journal
I was driving a truck and B was in the passenger seat. I was speeding home at night, going 75mph, and passed a cop parked on the right hand side of the road. The police car was dark and did not move when I passed it, but I knew I was busted. B and I switched seats, and I asked him if he minded taking the blame for my speeding. He smiled and said, “Of course not.” We both knew that his luck with speeding was better than mine.
He drove the truck the rest of the way home—which, incidentally, was my parents’ house—and I asked him if we were allowed to keep driving. “Sure,” he said. “I motioned to the cop that I wanted to drive the truck home, and he motioned that he would let me park it.”
We got out of the truck and the police car drove into the driveway. The officer walked with B and I into the house. The two of them went into the large upstairs bathroom and closed the door to talk. I went into the kitchen where I prepared food with my cousin Misti for the evening meal. B and the police officer had been in the bathroom for a very long time, and I had started to wonder what they were discussing.
Then I was standing on a dusty dirt road toward the back of a small crowd of people wearing white robes: it reminded me of a movie portraying Biblical times. Some officials brought out a prisoner with tied hands and brought him before a balance scale with two cups on each side.
They poured a white milky liquid into the cup on the right side of the scale, sending it down lower than the left side. A friend of the prisoner stepped up and filled the left cup with gold coins until it was lower than the white water. The friend had bought the prisoner’s freedom.
Then they brought B out with his hands tied. He looked dirty, tired, and beaten. The officials again poured the same white milky substance into the right cup of the balance, only this time they poured more liquid and made the cup lower. A large man with a lot of dark, curly hair on his head and chin stepped forward and put many $100 bills into the left cup.
He didn’t know that the officials were going to decide by weight. When the balance scale hardly moved, he lowered his head in shame and stepped back into the crowd. The officials declared the length of B’s sentence: 23 years.
My heart sank and I went into shock. I tried to get towards the front of the crowd to make eye contact with him and let him know that I loved him, but I was unable to move. B tossed something to a girl in front of the crowd. She turned towards me and tossed it to me.
I wondered how I would pay rent with B in a foreign prison for 23 years. I wondered how I would survive without him. I wondered if I would still have the house by the time he was free. I wondered if there was anything I could do to change his sentence. I wondered all of this as I slowly made my way through the airport to my flight.
I looked to my left and saw B next to me in an orange robe walking the same direction I was. While still looking forward, he stepped closer to me and squeezed my hand. He then stepped away and into a side room.
Themes: B