The journey so far was tiring, but I was just sitting, and lying around in my cell. I reached the end, between walls, between iron fences, and in orange jumpsuits. But the journey has just begun. I walked, ran, and fought; I joked, jostled, and jettisoned. I worried, imagined, and hoped; that the journey wasn’t far from over. I was in my cell among fellow inmates.
In winter, in spring, under the sun, and in autumn; I gabbled, waffled,
and teetered. I complained about everything and anything: cold (oh what an icy
condition!) and the sun (Get me out of this cauldron!).
At one time, I was a gibbering ‘champ’ before the warders
and inmates and other times was a ‘ghosted’ imbecile. My life, my thoughts, my behaviours,
and my actions became a planless arrangement. Yesterday, I said that the ‘moon’
was full; and today it’s half; and tomorrow it’s crescent. The moon is always
all of those, but the mind stops thinking when it is not free.
Even when the mind is not free, it thinks about one thing, and one thing only. The mind thinks about Olena. The mind remembers Olena, the woman who put me away for life. How is that cool? I trudged two steps forward, the prison way, and eight steps backward. I aged and shrunk. A day in my incarceration took away a thousand days off from my life. I was sentenced to 40 years because of love.
But how could you love the person who put you away for life? This
thing called love is like a leech. It can suck the life out of you, prey on you
at all levels, and push you out of yourself. So, not loving her will tear my
heart out. That’s why I write about Olena. I wanted you to know who she was and
her powers.
The inmates said that I was a fool and a wimp. Others considered
it stupid and irresponsible. To many, it’s a contest between puerility and
obduracy.
Olena describes it as a time of hope, love, and peace. And that’s
why I went to prison. To hope, to love, and await her peace. Is that not
stupidity? The inmates were right, but Olena was very right. I hoped for renewed togetherness and solidarity.
I hoped and wanted to sing from the same hymn book with everyone out there. But in my cell, I sang alto in the morning, a tenor by noon, and a soprano by evening. At night, my ears were buzzing with cacophonic wailings and woes from fresh fish (the new inmates). I lived alone in my cell and surrounded by dead walls, but I heard different voices, and yet only I was the chorister, the leader, and the choir. No! Not me alone. Olena is the melody, the harmony, and the song. She was my hallucination.
I imagined the sweetness and joy of knowing her and living by her side. It's the sweetest of all. By habit and association, I cling to her. She doesn't want me to remember what happened; why I was in jail. She took away my rationality. She gives me emotions and feelings.
Gradually, I started to build personal resentment for not loving
her enough. I traded residual knowledge about her malignity for a new me in an orange jumpsuit. I saw myself not being able to manage the ire of imprisonment and
the yearnings for Olena. Her overbearing image constantly threatens my rights
and freedom. But I never realized that. Because each time Olena stands and
watches. She presents me with rays of beauty and shoots down from the sky
angelic joys and platitudes. Those reversed the storms of destruction in me.
The terror of the day and night was gone. Once by my side, I fear no evil. She
visited me and told me so many nice things about the outside.
When she was gone, I moved from stability to
instability because she put worry in me and took away the prison peace that I
had known for 30 years. I started again to build a new life in prison; to wipe
away the thoughts of the outside and walk away from her ideas.
I changed like the inconsistent moon and yet, she whispered into my ear the words of a mother to her infant child. There's peace, calm, and joy. My body though inundated with diseases and infirmities, Olena cuddles me with tenderness and lulls melodies from afar.
I couldn’t say which prison time I was doing: Olena’s or the States? While in state’s incarceration, it was heavily guarded, prison wards wielding their clubs and guns; their keys jingling and dangling, reminding the inmates that their liberty depends on a little copper that unlocks their way to freedom. But not with Olena.
Every day, she opened the gate of my prison, and I was free. I
used to trudge backward with confidence, but now I marched forward more
confidently. She gives me another
opportunity to build a city of love and justice, a new beginning! It's a new
day given to me by my love to share peace, joy, and love. She wants me to be
responsible and promises not to change me.
She's my beginning, my end, my all; and the silence of
my soul. She's my sun, my moon, my guiding star; my memorable excellence. I
can’t forget her because she's my love and my all.
I have forgotten the past antagonisms, my flawed life, and my incarceration. I came back to Olena after 35 years. I was changed and she was changed. Nothing was the same.
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