I was twelve when the dreams started. The dreams are always the same. Waking up screaming, mouth full of the taste of ash and the smell of burning flesh, the feel of greasy smoke clinging to my skin, the feel of rubble under my fingers.  Coming to my present reality was always the hardest part, because in those moments when the fabric between the world of dreams and the world of waking, I was in the process of dying horribly.  Often, the moment of waking wasn’t just accompanied with a scream, but with the chanting of the Kaddish — the Jewish prayer for the dead.  Which….  since I don’t actually recall ever having learned to speak or read Hebrew, is a little bit…..  strange.

In my dreams, I am a German Jew, a man, who works as a member of the establishment.  What I do, I don’t really remember.  But I do know that in order to save my own skin, I become a member of the Gestapo, eventually turn in my own family to protect myself, and am eventually found out and discovered, and sent to Dachau.

Today I am watching as my fellow citizens sit idly by and support moves by an increasingly fascist government to increase security by clamping down even more on freedom of expression in Canada in order to protect them from “The Enemy”.  Today I am watching as every day, rather normal and harmless people, are being forced out of work because of opinions they share on “social” media.  Today I am watching as strong, resiliant, courageous men are killing themselves because they are being stifled with an invisible noose so that they cannot express their feelings.  Today, I am watching my nightmares become a reality.