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The School Yard and the Hollow Man
A dream about resisting the “school of the world”.
I had a dream about a school for boys. It was a four-story, red brick building comprised four wings, arranged to create a rectangular structure enclosing an open-air courtyard at the center. From the interior windows of the upper-floor classrooms and staff rooms, one could look out the windows and see the rectangular central courtyard down below — a sunlit space for football and other games.
A group of eight-year-olds, around 15 or 20 of them had been locked inside one of the classrooms on the top floor. I didn’t know who had locked them in, but they’d been in there for a long time and were feeling anxious and claustrophobic. The windows were all shut so there was no fresh air. The boys had no food or water and were becoming afraid. No one appeared to be aware of their confinement in the classroom. They’d been forgotten.
In the courtyard, I saw six older boys who looked like they were about 16 years old. They were carefree and playing football in the sunshine. One of the young boys inside the locked classroom on the upper floor started to sing. The other boys in the classroom joined him. Soon their singing could be heard in the courtyard below. One of the older boys who was playing in the courtyard heard the singing, looked up and saw the faces of the eight-year-olds pressed against…
