Several men and I were filming the life-like story of a ship captain named "Wilson." The action was taking place in the 1900s in some far-away islands, apparently in the Pacific Ocean. The story was about a group of 20-30 men who had defended an island against an attack by a larger force. In the film, I was among the men who were defending the island. In the story, we had captured some rifles, which we distributed among ourselves. The rifles had some large round balls about the size of marbles, and some smaller round balls only about a fifth that size.

I considered what would be involved in the defense. Each ball had to be put in a rifle and shot one at a time. Since some of my fellow defenders were only boys, I thought they could be putting the balls in the riffles while the other men shot.

I had a vision of what the attack would be like. I envisioned a swarm of men attacking, finally overrunning us. I thought it would help if we had a cave into which we could retreat so we couldn't be surrounded. In my vision, however, I saw us being attacked and shot until the attackers were finally able to swarm in upon us.

I was going to be given three small islands to protect. I would also be given some men to help me protect the islands. We were given some milk to be distributed among us, which we filled into plastic gallon jugs. Some women were also with us, and one woman named Jesse had disappeared. The others said she was a beautiful woman. One man reported the woman's disappearance to Captain Wilson, and everyone wondered what had happened to her, especially since we were in a strange place. They decided she might have taken some jewelry, which she had with her, and left.

I walked up a little road away from the others. As I walked away, one of the men hollered out to me. He thought I was upset because Jesse had left. I hollered back that I didn't even know Jesse, that I had never seen her. I couldn't be upset about her.

I continued walking until I noticed, on a road perpendicular to the one on which I was walking, a car sitting there. When the car began flashing its lights, we knew that the flashing was a signal that we needed to get ready, that the enemy was approaching. I began hurrying back to the others so we could prepare.

As I hurried along, I thought about the film. I had never heard of Wilson before. It was interesting that I had now become so involved with him and that I had learned so much about his life in such a short time. I knew we were making a film, but I thought about how real what we were doing seemed to me. I knew that although many people weren't going to survive the attack, I would survive. I thought that was because when the attack came, I would be on one of the small islands which wouldn't bear the brunt of the attack.

***

I seemed to be reading a book and I was either visualizing the scenes from the book, or watching a movie at the same time. In the book, two men had each gone to separate rooms where each was reading a book. Each man was intending to sacrifice himself for someone else. When I reached the end of the book I was reading, I read the last lines of the book the men were reading. The lines were, "If not me, who? If not now, when? To dream. To dream."

Reading the words, I realized I had heard them somewhere before, and I tried to remember where. It occurred to me they were the last words of Charles Dickens' book A Tale of Two Cities.

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