Pretty words.

Pretty, but that wasn’t what made the dream so vivid. The unmistakably pungent smell of ripe horse manure, not to mention the equally pungent smell of his own sweat—they were the details that brought it home. He had other dreams, not as often, but on the rare occasion that he did, he never picked up scents. It made him wonder. And if there was one thing he hated, it was pointless wondering.

Why did he dream in such rich detail of things he’d never done, never known? He wasn’t saying that it wasn’t possible, a dream such as that. If he’d learned anything, it was that the strange was always possible; maybe not desirable, but possible.

But in the end, so what? Dreams were just dreams, no matter their origins. Maybe this dream was a substitute for a memory he’d never made . . . a life he hadn’t lived. He’d never ridden a horse across a swelling hill of waving grass. He’d never chased a summer day and taken it for the ride of its life. He’d never reached, wild and free, for a handful of the sky. He’d done none of those things.

And he never would.

He had been born a slave. Some said “prisoner” instead; others, in white coats, lied with the gloating label of “student.” But he knew. He was born a slave, and he would die a slave.

The dream faded along with sleep. He opened his eyes to a reality all too full of smells of its own. They were worse than the relatively honest ones of sweat and horses. He detected alcohol and disinfectant; industrial detergents that bleached cheap cotton sheets; the occasional sharpness of urine and vomit. That was just this room. Outside was a hall that led to other rooms, other smells. Outside was a whole number of things, none of them pleasant.