Nightmare Channel
I was in a factory making shells for the Nazis with a bunch of other terrified women. We weren't in a concentration camp, we were merely forced labor, probably imported from occupied France, housed in shabby dorms and paid in worthless script. We made shells by packing gunpowder into china bowls, cups, sugar bowls, flour tins -- any household junk you'd find in a thrift store -- and sealing them up with wax. It was dangerous work because we did 15-hour shifts with open flame lighting, and because we were liable to be killed by the guards just like any concentration camp victim. We were just better fed and housed -- probably because my imagination can't stretch itself to the horrors of starvation. I haven't missed a single meal in ten years, except once when the family and I were camping and raccoons stole our breakfast on the morning we hiked out.
Anyway, another woman committed some infraction by talking back to the Kommandant and he had her burned alive with chemicals right in front of us. It was very quick, she was reduced to hot ash and slag in seconds, but horrible and obviously very painful.
Then one of the women in my group (we were working in circles of five) got a 'brilliant' idea and told the Kommandant she had noticed a silver snuffbox among the junk had gone missing. She stupidly supposed he would go look for the snuffbox and leave us alone for awhile. Instead he told me -- because it was my job to fetch stuff from the junkroom -- that if I looked around, he was sure I'd find the box and then I'd get something for my trouble. This meant that if I produced the box, he'd have me executed as the thief, and if I didn't, I'd be killed for not following orders. I had until the following morning to decide.
We left the factory through a tiny door that was labeled for disabled people (under the theory that someone in a wheelchair doesn't need the height?) and went to our dorms. These were actually regular houses on a ghettoized street, but very crowded -- 20 people to a three-bedroom house. I asked a friend to help me commit suicide, because I couldn't face being burned alive. We searched the house, stepping around and over our roommates, for poisonous chemicals and sharp implements, but found nothing. I decided I would rush the guards, as if trying to escape, and die by gunfire. It ended there.
Why don't I have flying dreams anymore? What's up with my subconscious? It's not as though I don't have a rich, full, and contented life.