The Dreams

Dream 22

We were working in the office when he looked me in the face and said, “Your mind is preoccupied.”

I answered tersely, powerless with fatigue, “The cost of the medicines is beyond my means.”

“I understand and appreciate that,” he said, “and I praise God who saved me from its claws.”

So I asked him, “How could you survive that for which there is no survival?”

He replied, “I have a friend whose brother is a pharmacist. When he knows that I have an illness, he assures me that he’ll find a solution. He takes down what medications I and my family need each month, which he tells to his brother the druggist — then surprises me with their equivalent for less than a tenth of the regular price.”

I asked him if these operations weren’t dangerous. He tried to put me at ease, speaking to me at length on the ways of the different pharmaceutical companies until he had me upset and confused. Nonetheless, I didn’t hesistate — but wrote for him a list of the medications that I needed each month, and felt deeply relieved.

Then suddenly he said to me, “But I want a service from you in return.” I began to prepare myself to do what he asked.

“I’m disturbed by the attacks on the government’s red tape and bureaucracy. The government is aggrieved by what people say and write on this subject — so I want you to devote your pen to defending against it.” Astonished, I asked, what was the secret of his zeal for something that all people alike criticize and reject?

Angrily, he replied, “Brother, what is a civil servant worth who faces the public without bureaucracy and red tape?” My head whirled in confusion between the medications and the procedural maze.