I am attempting to write down as much of this dream as I can before I forget it.

I was handcuffed, shackled and muzzled, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. I looked like Harry Houdini, except my face was badly bruised, as if I had been beaten repeatedly. My head was shaved, and a priest walked just behind me, reading me last rights. There were six guards around me, two with shotguns flanking either side of me. We were walking down a metal scaffolding, and then into an elevator. Around the elevator, my friends were cheering and hollering. My little brother Curt banged against the wiremesh of the elevator door jeeringly. Erin spit at me. Christy threw a bottle which shattered against the mesh and sent shards flying in. I did not even flinch, as if I expected it. One of the guards moved to push the crowd of friends and family away as the elevator began to rise. I could see the tiny shuttle attached to the massive booster rocket as the steel car pushed upward to the long walkway that led to it. I walked down the metal path. A voice screamed "Burn in hell!" from deep below me. Before they load me onto the shuttle, they remove the handcuffs, the shackles, the muzzle and the leg restraints. Then they remove a pendant from around my neck, and a ring from my finger. I am then pushed into the shuttle and the door is closed. The people are moved out from around the rocket and led back to a place where they can safely watch. The motorized platform rolls back slowly, leaving the rocket attached to a scaffold to hold it steady. The countdown begins and I move to strap myself into a seat, the only one in the capsule. There is a picture beneath several layers of plastic, showing a picture of Mars, and a sticker of a street sign saying "One way" pointing to Mars. I resolve not to shed a tear and fold my arms over my chest as I feel the engines blast. I am being sent to Mars, in exile, never to return, in order to die, and as far as I know, I have done nothing to merit it. The trip will take approximately one year. There is food and water, supplies meant to last me the trip there. I am told over my headset what an honor it will be for a horrible person like me to be the first man to set foot on Mars. I tell them to go to Hell. They tell me I'll get there first. I scream. ... And then I awake.