One night, after a day of quiet thought, and a walk on the sand to my favorite fishing spot, I dreamed this dream:
A little man, dressed in emerald green, danced in a circle of lunging snakes. He held a cane in his hand as he moved to strange music on a bare patch of earth that had been long ago tamped down. Each time he tapped his cane on the ground, it hit exactly at the place the next snake would strike. The snake hit the cane and bounced off harmlessly as the man continued to dance and sing. In the dream the more I listened, the more dizzy I became, till suddenly I was infused with a feeling of light and the sense of a strange radiance. In that joy I knew I was the song the man sang. . . the music, the lyric and the voice itself.
The next morning, walking across the dunes near the center of the island, I saw my old friend, the guard, from far away. I looked at him with fear, until I realized that his pain had begun long before he met me, and it would be a long time before it left him. He saw me from across the dune, looked into my eyes for a second, then turned away. To my complete surprise I felt a moment of sorrow, though I also understood with some relief, that the invisible thread that had connected us no longer existed, that in fact it had begun to fray the moment I had dropped the knife I'd made.
The next day I woke up with the light in my head again and heard a voice say:
“Soon.”
It never occurred to me to question this voice.
I began to think of what I needed to do to be ready to leave the island, without considering the possibility that I would be officially released. Neither did it occurred to me that I should be frightened. Instead I felt that it was simply time to go. I resolved to let the animals run wild. I was sure they would be OK-that the guards would take care of them.