I know talking about a dream one had is only interesting for the person who is talking about it, but I am going to do it anyways, with the hope in my heart that this dream may transcend that, and may have deep things that I can’t see in it. I know the probability or whatever is against me, but I will forge ahead with my chest out and my head high.

I was in the basement of my parent’s house, where I had lived for 14 years.

We moved there when I was 7, and I moved away when I was 21. We called the entrance to the house the foyer, but I remember being told in high school that that word was saved for hotels and fancy places, not my house. The foyer was fairly big and had glass doors that led to what was called the “basement”, despite being the first floor, and stars that led to the second floor that had the kitchen, living room, three bedrooms and a den. The basement was basically a second living room. When I was young, it was the kids’ room. We had a TV, and a lot of video games there. We had a couch, and some big chairs, and it was very much our space. There were also two bedrooms in the basement, and this is where me and my older brother slept.

So the glass doors to the foyer were open, and I was in what was the kids room, and is now my dad’s space. At this time though, the furniture wasn’t how it always was. Things seemed rearranged, and furniture I had not seen before was there. Perhaps due to the boringness of other people’s dreams, I did not feel anything strange about being in my parent’s house just yet, but that did come when this figure appeared in the foyer.

I don’t mean that he magically appeared, like out of thin air, I mean that I realized he was in there after a while.

“You’re here to be tortured,” he said seemingly non-plussed with the whole matter, but also seeming to get at least some joy in it. In hindsight, I bet he really enjoyed seeing the initial reaction of fright people get, before they somewhat consciously decide how to compose themselves with the mask they’ve perfected over their life.

“Excuse me? Tortured?”

“Yes, please wait. I have to set up.”

Perplexed and somewhat annoyed, I wasn’t ready to just give in to this person. I tried to push him with some great force, and now the magical stuff started happening. He basically became like a ghost and I could not make any contact with him. When describing it, it sounds like cheap special effects, but these black clouds came out around him as he did it, and his face became almost like a cartoonish devil, but nothing with red or horns, but dark and pale.

“There’s no escape from any of this,” he said calmly, “but try all you want.”

And so try I did. Now with a desperation (which I’m sure he liked), I ran up the stairs to where my parent’s bedroom was. My wife and my parents were all sleeping in the same bed, and all were very sleepy (typical of sleeping I suppose). I tried to wake them up with an urgency to tell them that I was about to be tortured, but they were too tired to care, or thought the entire thing sounded incredibly silly.

My captor came into the room, and I realized that only I could actually see him.

“They can’t see me, and they won’t care. There’s nothing you can do. You have to come with me,” he said, again, non-plussed but obviously getting some enjoyment out of it.

And so I left my parents’ bedroom, walked down the hall, went down the stairs into the foyer, and back into what was the kids’ room.

He first showed me the drills that he was going to use. They looked like drills from drill presses at first from grade 8 shop class, but upon further inspection they looked like drills you operate manually.

“You’ll be sitting here, and then the drill will go into your head from above,” he explained.

Then he showed me his whip that he had. It looked like a very nice soft leather. I don’t know the first thing about whips, and so I think that made this whip a little fantastical. It had a ball on the end somewhere. A hard ball of leather. After that, there were tassel things, like on those jackets people wear in cowboy movies. Tassles and a ball. He walked out of the kids’ room, and into the foyer, closing the glass doors behind him. Then, he showed me how the ball of leather on the whip was used, striking the glass door with it, and making these perfectly round holes into the glass with amazing precision.

Up until now I hoped this was some silly Murakami-esque nonsensical fantasy, but seeing the actual door break, and having things connected to the real world made me worried and confused. My first thought was “wait, so this actually will hurt me?” This may have been because I semi-knew I was in a dream, but I may have also been at that stage of a surreal event where I am finally understanding the consequences of what was going on, and that maybe “everything won’t be okay in the end”.

He did it a few more times, calmly saying, “this is how I’ll attack you,” and I panicked like mad.

I silently panicked though, I just watched as everything was being set up.

Then, in a step that is normal in dreams, and boring in stories, for no reason that I can remember, more people began to show up in my parent’s basement to be tortured. There was a bunch of us there now. Our torturer still was getting ready. I saw different types of drills being set up where the pingpong table used to be.

This was the first time I started to think about why he wanted to torture me, and the rest of the people that suddenly showed up. There was one thing which I had full conviction on, and that was I would tell them whatever they needed to know, no matter who it hurt. This conviction was something I wasn’t proud of, as I have watched tons of crime shows where some people are protecting their friends and loved ones until the very end, and others sob right away and pee their pants. I knew in a second that I would be blubbering like a baby, and peeing my pants. I didn’t show any of this of course. I played it cool as I was waiting around for doom. My mask is strong.

I looked at what everyone else was doing, and no one else seemed to really care about the situation that we were in. They were complaining about things, but not about being tortured. They complained how the torturer’s attitude was, and how the bathroom in the basement was small, and other things like that, and I didn’t get it at all. Didn’t they understand why lay ahead of us? Why didn’t they care? I had no idea, and this didn’t put me in a better mood.

Observing them, some of them were talking to our torturer, and then he said with reservation, “of course you all will only remember the first 35 minutes of this. After that you won’t remember a thing, that would be inhumane.”

At first I was relieved, but then I wasn’t sure if just not remembering something meant that I wouldn’t feel the unbearable pain or not. I also realized that if I would not remember, it was a matter of waking up if I had told them what they wanted to hear, and perhaps never waking up if I stuck to any principles and wanted to protect someone.

As people became more unruly, but not exactly against the torturer, everything slowly faded to black, and then I was in my bed in my current house, with my wife sleeping beside me. I had lived. I had told them what they wanted to hear. I searched my body for scars or pain, and there was none. It was the same soft body I went to sleep with.

I tried to remember what I was asked, and what I said, and all I could really remember was images of the letter L. I saw a keyboard with the L keys (yes, plural for some reason) having fallen out. I tried to think of people I know with the letter L in their names, or concepts. Love? Lust? Loss? I wondered if my actions had harmed anyone, and if my being safely in bed was at the direct expense of another.

However, as with all dreams, this one gradually started to fade away. What was strong vivid feelings of fear and desperation that negatively defined my character soon became “just a dream”, and will soon be completely forgotten. I may look back at this and think “hey, I got to write a story out of it at least”, but nothing more.

But now, however silly it is, I wonder if there was some reality to it, if the Kafka-esque situation where I was existentially being tested in front of the Devil himself was something more. Where it wasn’t about passing or failing, but observing the results of this insignificant human being’s reaction.

Hopefully I dream of sex or flying on a horse tomorrow or something.