To flee in the right direction

"For fourteen years in his exiguous cell of a Texan jail deathrow, Peter the prisoner has no more hope of one day recovering a so.-called normal life: so sweet a mirage for him and that, for so many others, doesn't deserve even a pause to think over it!

In a recurring way he dreams that he is escaping: he sees himself, like a hunted deer, bouncing in long crazy strides, to dissipate his tracks and his smells. Under his feet, he feels the burnt grass, the cracking leaves, the unexpected nests of forgotten dew... He makes a brief stop to squeeze between his arms the first tree he meets, to embrace its trunk, to fill himself with its vitality, its so peacefully exposed sensuality... each waking up, alas, he is still in this cube, with no hope of getting out of it: fake trial, false testimonies, appeals refused, witnesses disappeared, justice (?) implacable, incapable.

He, the uneducated, the very illiterate at the time of his arrest, has been able to learn how to write and read thanks to one of those prison visitors who came many a time to encourage him during his initial collapse. Little by little, Peter understood better his situation, was able to communicate his feelings and his opinions to the rare callers he received and to his penpal.

He started reading and discovered so many things; a limitless universe opened to him: since the most ancient times innumerable persons had written down their experiences, what they had learned from their own life... a continuous transmittal like a fellowship relay! From now on the prisoner gave a meaning to all what he found out; he opened to the others, started helping his co-inmates with comforting words or survival advice.

That is the way Peter has overcome the daily humiliations, the repeated nagging, the mean deprivations... Today, finally, he has decided to write, to bring his testimonies himself to outside people but also his encouraging messages to those who surround him. Peter is convinced of it now, with writing he will rise above his earthen hell and, till the inexorable execution, escape... in the right direction! "

Eliane Marigo

This text was awarded with Special Prize of the Jury for "Sensibility" at the Alliance Française Contest of May 10th, 2003.