World Dream Atlas

« I was a corrections officer in Delhi. We had boys as young as ten convicted of rape and murder. There were no resources to rehabilitate them. I remember boys being brought into a room with men who would strip and beat them until they confessed. A few times, I participated. Naked bodies, broken and bruised, crimson and cracked. They came in as human beings. When they were released, I don’t know what they were, and I have no courage to look back and find out. In dreams, I walk through fields. Where there could have been crops, there were only and axes, and blood, and mutilated bodies. The faces are familiar, but I can’t identify them. I know they are alive, but they are all completely still. Fear keeps them from moving. No one talks, even when touched or shook. There is no voice. There is nothing. I watch myself go about, a few inches above the ground – almost levitating. I watch myself – emaciated, unclothed, and consumed by sickness. I am reaching out to the people. I whisper in their ears, ‘Move. You can move now.’ And they do not move. With each new person, I become thinner, more frail, and less alive, until my body is vanquished – until I cease to exist. When I wake up, I look outside my window, until I can see someone walk by. It is the reassurance that there is still life in this world. »

— New York, USA