It was not a normal prison. Men and women of varying shapes and sizes were lying or seated in what I imagine a refugee camp to be. Many seemed confused, dazed, and groaning.Someone was delivering mail an eagerness invaded the inmates dead eyes. He gave me a parcel. It was from a friend from my last prison experience. He had sent me a 9 ounce bar of marijuana. I quickly, furtively, scrapped the contents into a bag, grateful for his understanding of the situation. I had put the parcel on an old chest of drawers that I recognised as one belonging to my ex wife. This did not bother me.

I was grateful for the marijuana, thinking it would be able to buy me enough to stay alive, but how did he know I was here, incarcerated ? I should approach the authorities as to my status but I had no recollection of an arrest though my conscience was unclear and anyway where were the warders ? A dwarf was telling me the score I sensed he knew of the marijuana but he gave me the confidence to wander, to wander.

I explored the territory. Here was a close friend weeping. He had given up hope He was no one specifically and yet everyone I knew. He had been there for 7 years. A woman I knew called me, offering advice. It made me angry and I turned away. She seemed to plea but it made me think of a small study group and the woman was not the one individual, whom I expected her to be, but all of them as one. Yes! It gave me an irrational hope that though imprisoned I was near the town where this small group met once a year and the recollection of this meeting seemed associated somehow with my present condition. I had to get out but how did one escape from an open gaol?

Then I realised. I had to seek, he who had led me there, and this person did not lie, in the light, but the shadow. He was hidden from the sun by my own body, for I contained and hid his presence, behind a mask that held me here in this hell. I looked round at the sad pitiful pleading eyes and noted at least that I was standing. Indeed I was the only one in that world who could stand on two feet who had enough will to wish too.