Gold Kroegers in Sand World

I dreamed I was an indentured servant, spending my days cleaning for the next slightly higher class of citizens in a communal living situation. The caste to which I belonged was forced to sleep on the wet sand floors of a giant seaside warehouse. The favored ones in my class were allowed to make sand castle replicas of beds to sleep on. But whether you had this privilege or not, or whether you had the added luxury of a sleeping bag to place on top of the sandy fake bed, it didn't matter -- you were going to wake up with sand in your hair, eyes and mouth.

In the warehouse/habitation where most of the population was housed, sand was the bane of our existence. It was ubiquitous and we spent most of our time digging the possessions of the upper class out from under the sand that deposited itself on everything nightly. People kept their possessions in boxes to keep things from getting lost in the sand, but it didn't matter. The boxes would fill up with sand and be buried after only a day or two of neglect.

I was cleaning for one family, digging around under the bed, when I came across a gold coin. It was painted to look like a cheap arcade token, but I recognized the writing on it as being from a highly prized collectible coin called the Kroeger. I offhandedly asked one of my workmates how much a Kroeger was valued at, not mentioning that I'd just found one under the bed.

"Those things are worth about $4000 each," they told me, perking up at the mere mention. "Why do you ask?" 

"Oh, no reason," I told them. "So a person would be lucky to possess even one of them, then?"

I left the question hanging and kept digging in the sand. I found a partially buried cardboard box and felt around inside, combing my fingers through fluffy wet sand. Jackpot. More Kroegers. I found about ten or twelve in all and quickly stacked them and placed them next to the bed. 

I debated about whether to report them to the residents or to keep them for myself. I would certainly be making trouble for myself if I were caught with them in my possession. No one would believe that they were mine. Plus, since they were uniquely painted, they would be easily identifiable as belonging to this family.

I opted to leave them by the bed. They'd be buried again soon enough. You can't have nice things in Sand World. Plus, I'd been on the radar anyway for failing to clock in on my time card, and another misstep on my part would result in my getting written up. Being written up didn't result in getting fired, just having privileges taken away. I'd be sleeping flat on the cold sand without even the luxury of making myself a fluffy sand pile.

That's about it. As you can see, nothing much really happened in this dream. It was more about the general feeling and atmosphere of work, lack of privilege...and sand.