Dreams of Steel

Had a bad night. Dreamt that I was back at the old place, in the post-Stalinist era. The place was in lockdown mode. I was visiting with the warden, who was my old friend Dhónall. We had porridge for breakfast down in the steamy benches of the workers' canteen. Steel fences were everywhere, and the local blue-and-gold bank had set up shop. The bank tellers were the only bit of glamour in a mass of industrial concrete.

Dhónall told me that everything had gone this way after the Old Man had bought it in the bathtub and his successors had proven too weak to hold the centre. A purge had followed, with revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, revisionists and post-modernists all taking part in the bloodshed. Women were not spared. In fact, some had been blamed for the greatest atrocities.

Below everything was a large sewer with stone slabs covering up most of it. The stench was far enough away that it had little effect. It was all starkly, frighteningly detailed. It was real. All along the perimeter of the fence were the old awards. Best for this, best for that, quality this and that. Above them all were the words, "Work makes you free."

Everyone looked tired. The teachers punched cards to book in and out. The students just marched from place to place, the chips in their necks telling everyone who they were and where they were. From a green glass module suspended by a crane in the middle, a monitor station kept tabs on each person, lighting up the truants and delinquents with various colours of laser beam. The PE department consisted of ex-rugbymen with truncheons and water-polo caps.

I woke up feeling bothered.