The Spy

Vivid dream in the night. A group of us are in a retreat house in China, coming together and praying and doing whatever you would do on a retreat. The house has two rooms linked by a hallway. By and by I realise that there is a gap between the rooms and a secret room has been set up between them, and a spy from the Communists has been planted inside to observe us and to track our conversations. The room turns out to be just about visible when one looks through a window at the side wall of either of our rooms. The spy is an dolorous middle-aged fellow in a beige jacket, and he mostly watches the screen of his own laptop idly or plods around his room. One of the retreat participants is a tetchy native Chinese man, and he berates me for my curiosity. "Do you want to die?" he shouts. "Do you want to be exposed? Don't look at him!" Now a small toddler boy among us is standing at the window and has been studying the Spy intently, while the Spy stares blankly out over his head. I realise that the windows let light through in the wrong direction -- we can see the Spy, but he cannot see us, only reflections of his own small room. No wonder he looks so glum! When I woke up I decided that the man who had nagged me in the dream was the real snitch. And now it is day and all the myriad activities of day beckon me again.