It's a weird scene down at the office. My friend Chris is tied naked onto a wooden frame. No, not Christ, just Chris. Those are only rags around his wrists and ankles, not nails through them. His torturer, a balding executive guy in a suit, looks satisfied with that. No need for blood--tying Chris up is enough. Racked with pain!

But Chris is a full-time artist's model, used to holding poses for hours; so this bothers him far less than you'd think. In fact, he's wriggled free, but keeps his hands up, winding the rags around his wrists as if he's still caught!

And when his boss walks into the next room to consult a filing cabinet, or breaks to get a sandwich, Chris slips off the rack, sits naked on the boss's desk, and opens a sack lunch. He snacks with an eye on the door, though. He's hired to suffer without breaks. At the sound of steps in the next room, he hops back into position, just before his boss looks in!

What IS this, slacker-style martyrdom?

He's even been chatting softly on the phone with a girl he likes, explaining the whole situation--he wants to arrange a date with her, but whispers "keep your voice down, or my boss'll hear us. We'll have to wait, I'm all tied up at the office."

Aw, you saw that line coming...

NOTES

• The rack = This week's DR WHO episode was set at the end of the world. Rich folks gathered on an orbital station to watch the sun go nova. Most are aliens or drastically evolved people. Cassandra, "the last real human," is just a face in skin, on a frame like the rack in my dream! Cosmetic weight-loss surgery slowly removed all the rest. Cassandra even talks rather like Michael Jackson... Rose tells Cassandra off--"Last human? I've met trampolines with more humanity!" Suggests my dream's about vanity and bogus self-improvement.
• Chris is an artist's model used to holding poses = literally true, his job is posing naked all week. He says he's comfortable with the nudity, it's holding long poses that can be tough.
• Chris = 1: me--he shares my first name. 2: a professional poseur! Literally! Maybe the dream's saying "This is a pose I'm used to faking; it's not as terrible as it looks." But what pose? Tormented artist?
• Business, pretense: just saw Jacques Tati's old film MON ONCLE. A "modern" factory, but the workers act busy only when the boss is around...
• I've been mystified by the bizarre images in a recent dream called Pixy Concussion, so just before bed I asked "What was that all about?" Here's my answer! I pretend to be... what? Busy? Artistically tormented? Racked with pain? Self-improving? But only when my conscious is looking...
• Dating, not just freedom, must be hidden from this bossy side of me. Wants to see me lonely as well as martyred! My, my my...

"Kids, don't try this at home. Professional martyr on a professional rack."

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