Dream

Yesterday being Saturday, was pill day. That is to say that on Saturday evening I fill up my pill box with its four kinds of pills for the week following, a process which takes about five minutes.

It was also a day on which I received a promotional email from 'Compassion in Dying', an outfit from the same stable as 'Dignity in Dying'.

And, last not but least, after a week spent in an area with strong army traditions, if not present presence. Also a week in which I spent some of the time reading a Maigret story, involving, as it usually does, an interrogation which results in the confession of the criminal in question.

Which previous resulted in this morning's dream, which seemed to take place on some ill-defined army camp.

Somewhere outside, I find a carton containing a lot of small boxes, not unlike the long thin boxes my pills come in. Each small box contained a lethal dose, made up of three or four components, to be taken one after the other. Rather more complicated than the lethal doses which I believe are issued to our air crews when they go on combat missions, in case of accidents.

I decide that I will trouser two of the small boxes, for which I might have a use some day. But I then start to worry about getting arrested by the military police for theft of government property, some stores' clerk having noticed that the carton is two boxes short.

There does not, in the dream, seem to be any question of my being caught with the stolen boxes in my possession, but the MP's do know that I have stolen them and it is just a question of them getting me to confess. And I know that they know. And so on. In these circumstances, will they be able to wear me down and get me to sign a confession? First, I am thinking that probably they will. Second, I start to think that maybe I should brazen it out. Yes, I did steal them, but it is my human right to have access to such pills. What are you going to do about it?

At which point there seems to be a pause in the dream, after which I move into a second part, in which I am still on the same army camp, but have morphed into some kind of army medico and I puzzling about how it is that I am in the army, but do not seem to have done any kind of basic training. No drill and no weapons.

Then I start to wake up, wondering about the whole business of confessions, of the police working on a suspect, hopefully a criminal, until he or she confesses. A working on which should not need to involve actual physical abuse, nothing involving fists, boots or coshes. After which the criminal admits defeat, gives up and goes on to a straightforward trial at which just deserts are dispensed. I only hope that people training for duty in the criminal justice spend quality time on studying how all this should be done.

PS: some time later, I start to wonder about the fact that we talk about army camps, while our friends in the US talk about army forts. Fort Knox, Fort Meade and Fort Drum. Later still, I check in Wikipedia, to find that our friends talk about both forts and camps.

Reference 1: https://compassionindying.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/.