Prisoner Redux

You wake up one morning and you realize...it's summer. It's a revelation. "Summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the streets, boy!" I guess that's one way to spend the time. For some reason Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, "Damn the Torpedoes!" was playing in my head as I ran along the lakefront this morning. For me it is a summer album. "You don't have to live like a refugee!" Indeed.

So, I've been living on the vibe of "the prisoner." A couple of days back I had a very significant dream and it is still resonating with me. I realize that I have always had empathy for the prisoners - of the heart, the king, the state, of fear, of the mind. All of my plays have been about prisoners of one kind or another. I always seem to have a huge resevoir of empathy for those in gulags, in secret CIA locations, the abomination of Guantanmo. I have the guilt of a prisoner. I'm not sure what I've done, I may be falsely accused, but there's a secret fear that I am being punished, and I deserve the punishment too. I am human, that is my punishment!

I think this is a false picture, and when I saw it a few days ago, plainly, clearly, without illusion, it made me laugh out loud. It is certainly a picture that I need to "blow up." And well, maybe it's this summer, in the fading number of summers that I have at my disposal, where I will finally bury the prisoner.