We were champions, and I was a star player. Proven commodities, our team had finished one season in glory and were preparing for the next campaign when the raid and kidnapping occurred. We had been herded into a dark conference room, somewhere in a government facility. A quartet of dark thugs, more private militia than real soldiers, watched over our frightened dozen while a pale, suited man -- stereotypical political sleaze -- began a presentation to us on our new roles and duties on behalf of the current administration. As he fired up a projector to display whatever charts, graphics, and clips he sought to indoctrinate us with, I hit him with the heavy bag of batteries. Two of the thugs had ducked out, leaving just two toughs for us to fend off. Slipping out of my seat near the end of the table, I tried to use the room's near-dark as cover, throwing the plastic bag full of batteries at one of our guards. (My sunlit self had received the unused AA's from my father-in-law earlier in the day, and my moonlit spirit never questioned why a kidnapped athlete would possess this odd weapon.) The private soldier proved smarter than his suited boss, and he deflected my crude toss. It gave my teammates time, however, to overpower him as the second guard lunged at me. I dropped onto my back and kicked him in the face hard enough that I felt certain the man had lost consciousness. Hopping up, I went for the door.
As I have said, we were a team -- a dozen basketball champions, in fact -- but I was the star, the exceptional one who dared shots and moves considered unthinkable. At the conference room's door, in the middle of our abduction, I again separated myself from my comrades. I left while their cries to stay and think echoed behind me. Two quick turns through empty, unremarkable corridors brought me uncannily to an emergency exit door that led to an outside catwalk. I remember thinking that it would not be safe to take the catwalk all the way to the roof, where guards and helicopters could easily catch me. I kept my vision straight ahead, not glancing now at the building's grounds, and followed the black metal walkway around a corner to a convenient window.
Climbing inside, I found I had entered a locker room of sorts, perhaps for the private militia men. Rather than linger and invite discovery, I walked forward to a door at the opposite end of the room. Either my purposeful stride, my unconcerned carriage, or my incomplete dream reasoning saw me through, and the few faces that looked up from benches or the rows of lockers neither recognized nor challenged me. Passing under the door frame, I saw a broad, low lobby and took a moment to consider my location.
It could have been the lobby of an office, a hospital, a midtown hotel, or one of those cookie-cut police stations that appear in TV shows. Across from the locker room entrance, several functionaries greeted visitors from behind a reception desk that spanned the wall. To my right, tall windows framed the double glass doors of the building's main entrance. The lobby looked out on a square lawn bordered by chain-link fencing that had loops of barbed wire topping it. The lone path leading from the doors ran to a gate with a sentry hut, and I could see military trucks and an airstrip beyond it. I was trapped on a base, clearly, and my plan to walk out the front door had no chance of success. Abandoning it, I walked to the open archway replacing most of the wall to my left, and three carpeted steps led me up into the club and lounge that sat just off the lobby.
My dream persona calmly accepted the shift in scenery from government facility to entertainment venue, and I realized immediately that this was an officers' lounge, a VIP area where I could find the base commander and negotiate our freedom. Then, two occurrences confirmed my suspicions. First, my sleeping body intruded with a command to find a bathroom, which was denied by a frowning bouncer whose look made it clear that even the restroom was for members only. Second, as I moved along the swanky bar and farther into the club's shadowy interior, I spied the base commander's exclusive area near the back.
The typical velvet-rope barrier delineated the commander's private section, and nearest to view was an L-shaped leather couch across from a pair of gauzy green curtains that were secured top and bottom by anchoring wires. On the couch, a trio of gorgeous women in scanty attire relaxed, waiting. I got closer and watched a bodyguard emerge from the green curtains and beckon to a blond woman in a revealing gold miniskirt and tube top. She followed him back through the gauze partition, and I paralleled them, walking alongside what turned out to be a series of multicolored gauze hangings leading to a huge four-post bed with a high canopy. These women, then, were the commander's mistresses , or bought women here to entertain his lusty whims. Sure enough, I saw the blond reach the end of the curtains and flounce into bed with a fat, uniformed man.
Now, I am not sure how I got so far without a guard intercepting me. Nor does my woken mind understand why the base commander allowed a narrow walkway to run beside his personal encounter room. But seeing as how the chief officer would be occupied for some time, I gave up on meeting with him and kept walking. My path continued to a door that opened onto a large, dark room. Immediately, I understood the new chamber to be an exhibit hall for the commander's less fleshy trophies. And the fat hedonist seemed to have a remarkable taste for ancient armor and precious Asian relics. Copper and bronze weapons caked in verdigris lined the walls in glass cases. Soft spotlights picked out old treatises; I spotted at least one tapestry; and a full set of samurai armament rested on a display mannequin. I was impressed. Moreover, with only one door in the room, I had reached the end of my journey.
I still needed to pee, was my first thought. And I really couldn't avoid getting recaptured forever. Plus, I felt more at peace in the present chamber than I had anywhere else on the crazy base. So, willing my bladder to stop bothering me, I sat down, crossed my legs, and tried to sink into a meditative trance. I was a star, this was beyond neither my ability nor my experience. I let the calm of the museum flow through me. The urgency of abduction and escape left me. My spirit settled.
Soon, my dream self sank into a sleep-like trance. And my daytime self opened my senses to greet the dawn.
Sent through the gate between January 7th and 8th, 2011.
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