THE ECHO OF FORGOTTEN CORRIDORS

Enkel Hasamataj

The Echo

of Forgotten Corridors

Maluka, 2024

Title:

The Echo of Forgotten Corridors

Author: Enkel Hasamataj

Editors:

Dr Sarah Meehan O'Callaghan,

Dr Tiziana Soverino & Jeremy Murphy

Cover Photograph: Kled Kapexhiu

Graphic designer: Kleida Maluka

© 2024 - Enkel Hasamataj ISBN 9789928393548

Botim i parë nga "Maluka" Tiranë, 2024

Th

e spring's breeze is fluttering around the hair, collars and lapels of folks on the streets as it invites everyone to the perpetual rejuvenation

dance of life while blowing more briskly and vividly after a long and frosty winter. Like a veil embroidered with pearls that have wrapped up nature, from place to place, the melted snow has shrunken and metamorphosed into small water drops. In this blossom spree, the young prompted sprouts slightly bow their crest and thrive abundantly ever more with each passing day.

Pedestrians stroll nonchalantly on the sidewalks with a spontaneous vitality that indwells, reflecting on every smile and gaze, the multitude of the bits and pieces of bluish sky and the sun's rays, whirling a harmonious waltz.

Even though the cars swarm by, astonishingly, that peculiar uproar and tangle that randomly pervades are fainter and, every so often, completely trails away, generating a void as if it were sliding loosely on ice and not on wheels. A time like this takes me down my childhood memory lane, imbuing me with a startling peace that seeks to get hold of my entire being.

The evanescence of this feeling dissipated when a hand weighing down on my shoulder made me quiver, perturbing my vernal reverie.

"Man alive! Greetings T., long time no see!" the voice of a man around his sixties gruffly spoke, wearing a pitch mary brown jacket and a grey scarf clenched around his throat.

His bag-of-spanners face and the cross-eye gaze from within deep his socket, with bulging brow ridges, racked my brain for a brief moment amid a silent duel of recollections in my mind.

"Your grasp has turned out heavier, but your soul has always been free, like an artist." I replied after I had gotten a grip on myself and embraced him, "So many years that I have not seen you! Fifteen years, if I'm not wrong. It has been a while, hasn't it?!" I add promptly.

"Truly," he says to me, "the years have rolled away fast. You were then such a broth of a boy, and you sealed the end of each day with a new bruise or graze on your knees and body. Do you remember when I used to gather you all around and count all the bumps and scratches? You were a bunch of nippers that I loved to bits, particularly the three or four of you, who acted the maggot and are still close to my heart. I did not expect that you would recall me after all this time."

"How can I forget the man that has helped me so many times to dodge the whipping reprimands of the adult carers?"

Sherif is the bicycle handyman who worked in our endz when I was a child. He fixed up our bicycles more than a few times, on some occasions even for free, if we didn't have enough money to pay him in order to conceal our mischief from parental concern. He was a benevolent man, without a doubt. When he used to put the inner tube in the bucket of water to spot through the bubbles where the

flat tyre had the puncture, he always told us "There is no hideaway that you haven't been exploring, you rascals. Where about have you been wondering this time?"

And indeed, we roamed in all sorts of places all day long. We went by the railway and laid long nails on top of the train's rails, waiting for the wagon to slide over them and press it down to the shape of a spit.

Afterwards, we would go to the factories on the outskirts of the city. We would jump over the walls sneakily, and there we would collect chips, bearings, spheres, dice, and different pieces of bones and ivory scattered on the floor. Then, we made up all kinds of games by playing with what we found, or we would arrange the bits and pieces, building various innovative things, as in the case of ball bearings, utilizing those to make stroller carriages for our rides.

Our soft underbelly were the downhills of the park at the artificial pond, which even today we still call simply the "Lake", as we whooshed through it with our bicycles.

One fine day, this bearish man of golden heart did not show up in his workshop and was lost without a trail, like salt in the sea, like a dream while napping on a summer afternoon. The word spread that he was arrested by the Central Committee since he was assumed to be an undercover mole. Others whispered hither and thither that he was killed at the border while making an attempt to flee the country. There were also those that said he had committed suicide by drowning in the sea as a result of a heart-breaking love story. Rumours boiled like tar and unfurled faster than cholera at that time when the press was centralized, and the ears-flapping were at the peak of their thriving. However, this airing of the lungs would ebb away in the gully of oblivion, only to be updated tomorrow with other "news".

I would not have recognised him if it weren't for the skin's cracks that permeated almost his entire face, crisscrossing like dry water rivulets in the desert after a storm, even more eroded and puffed up by age, as well as his jolly brown eyes, which had wearied off something of their past glow.

"I'm happy to see you in good shape." I say to him cheerfully, "You have slimmed down a bit, but considering that we thought you had gone the way of all flesh, you look fine. Anyway, you may well expect me to have the excellent memory of a young man forging away at life, but how did you recognize me after so many years? Do not tell me that I haven't changed a bit, from that tot with messy outfit, since the last time we saw each other?"

Keeping himself silent for a few seconds, he then glances at a building that stands on my right and says "Do you see that building over yonder?" pointing his index finger beyond the plaza, where we were standing, at an alley, where a two-story house with a roof deck was located.

"Yes," I answered him after I turned my head and saw the building, "it is the city's photographic museum."

"Before our paths crossed, I paid a visit to take a look at how the city had been transformed during this time. The gates to enter are pretty narrow, with two side pillars that give the impression of two skyscrapers growing taller and taller. I had to slither along at those for about thirty minutes to wiggle my way in, and while I was doing that, the left shoe slipped off my foot and fell behind. Since the marble floor inside the building was clean and reflected even the tiniest details of your face, as if it were made of glass, I left it where it dropped and planned to get it back on my way out. Therefore, I decided to take off my other shoe and put it in my jacket's inner pocket."

"Well, the premises are pretty much like the city." I jump in, "Many things have changed here recently. It has become really difficult and exhausting, and you have to squeeze through to pay for a single bill at the counter."

"Yes indeed, that's how it is." he affirms, shaking his head and continuing with his story "In the hall, at the front desk, there was an old woman. With her salt-and- pepper hair tied in a knot, sitting in a rocking chair, she was diligently knitting a piece of cloth at staggering speed. It was impressive to see her in action because she was working with six yarns at once, three in one hand and three in the other, the threads of three looms that were rotating

fast and not shrinking in size a bit.

One of them was black, the other was white, while the third was transparent. So, as a consequence, it was very difficult to distinguish from the others since it camouflaged itself, absorbing and reflecting the colours of the background. The piece of cloth that she was knitting, at most a cubit wide, had the shape of a film strip, not lacking the hollow squares in its edges, by which it clings to the device. This weave was spinning wave upon wave in an opening on the wall, and it was stored in the next room. Finally, without

batting an eye, the old lady addresses me 'Welcome, Sherif; I was waiting for you!'

Surprised, I asked how she knew my name since it was my first time seeing her. Without lifting her eyes, as she was calmly interlacing the threads, she confessed that she knew a lot of stuff about me. She even knew when I had learned to ribbon tie my shoes for the first time in my life.

That was her occupation, respectively, to keep a record of every important detail of the citizens that lived in the

city, along with everybody else, and let them be occasional bystanders or casual passers-by. Otherwise, what benefit would the progression of the sciences and social institutions at large have?

'Maybe to ease people's burden from their everyday obligations, so they can have more time to achieve their goals and to self-develop?' I replied to her.

'Enough talking a bunch of boloney, please.' she answered me, 'The wheel was invented so many thousand years ago as a consequence of the cyclic circulation of the seasons. And the benefit that it brought to agriculture had no comparison with anything else in the course of our civilization, and for what did you exploit it?' at this moment, she stopped moving the yarns, lifted a little the glasses that had slipped almost at the edge of her nose, and by looking stealthily into my eyes, spoke as she waved at me her index finger 'So, tell me, for what did you use it, you wagering brutes? To multiply your enormous profits and to fight each other because of your greed for power. That is why!'

'Please, hold your water, madam.' I answered her with the first thing in my mind, 'I myself am just a petty bicycle repairman. The most significant thing that has come as a result of my fixing the tyres has been the transportation of people from home to work and back, as well as the joy felt by the kids as they drift with their bicycles through the streets of the city. Nevertheless, honoured lady, I am here to visit the gallery. Please tell me how much the admission tickets cost?'

As she dives again in the process of knitting, she says to me 'Just what I was saying: money has become a millstone for the grinding of the bones! The entrance is free, but first, you have to answer a riddle. It is not a conundrum like

any other because it has more than one right answer, and depending on the response, you open the path for what you are seeking.'

'To tell you the truth,' I spoke to the old lady, 'I am not after anything in particular. I was wandering around and about, and to kill time, I decided to come to this museum to appease my curiosity about how the city has been transformed through the ages.'

'That's for you to decide. Anyway, the riddle goes as follows: One from the goat, and two from the stream. What the heart says, the cheek does not speak. His face has never dried. Who is it?' the elderly woman says.

The riddle was not easy at all," Sherif recounts, and his face contorted in astonishment, "and what's more, depending on the answer I was going to provide, the consequences were irreversible. The sole comfort was in the fact that the rebus had a common thread, which meant that for the same essence or feature, it was labelled with different names, as the case presented itself to the person who gave the answer. Right about when I was going to utter my response, a hand clasps me at my palm, between the thumb and index finger, pulling me deep into the gallery. It was a guiding drag in which every muscle in my body followed freely in an act of true will.

'The namelessssss', my answer echoed, as I was complying strictly with the pulling force of the mysterious hand, wherever it was carrying me. It felt more like I was being dragged while floating on water, or to be more precise as if I had been saved from drowning. Meanwhile, I tried to take a glance at the person who was pulling me, but it was as black as Newgate's knocker in there, and it was not possible to tell her apart, except some bracelets that clinked and a soft, smooth hand that was omnipotent over me."

"Sherif," I interrupt his confession for a moment, "why don't we go to a spit-and-sawdust place, where we would be comfortable and converse at ease? We can bust suds or bend our elbows with a whisky chaser. What do you think?" He affirms by shaking his head and continues narrating his story with such passion and commitment as if he were a lad telling his adventures at some Boy Scout camp roasting potatoes in the charcoal. His spirited mimicry after every and each of his exclamations, coupled with climactic phrases, from time to time swapped to gesticulating language by moving the hands vigorously, as to give the entire possible meaning to every sentence. After swilling down a few toasts, his lips started to wobble and quiver as

if he were performing in an operetta's choir.

"And as I was trying to have a better look" Sherif unravels further, "little sparks like luminescence flashlights were approaching and passing me by, radiating their neon-pale brightness in my face, as if I were travelling by train through a tunnel, and not being pulled along in the corridor of a gallery. Most varying silhouettes of drawings and photos developed and expanded in it. In one of them, I could discern the dilapidated foundations of a ground-floor house capsized on itself and its adobe walls toppled to the ground. A little further away stood out the outlines of a skyscraper built on the ground where an ex-factory used to be. Yet in another picture, a rustic old lady, with her head covered in white chiffon and wearing loose clothing, once of a pitch black colour, but recently somewhat bleached out from the sunlight, was sitting somewhere on a kerb on her haunches and was selling milk in a litre and a half reused plastic bottles, gazing at a customer who was getting off his posh automobile, that most likely costs as much as a small dairy factory.

I could not discern some of the images clearly since her golden hair shook and glittered my sight, disfiguring their images and shapes, but from those I could glimpse, one above them all got lodged into my brain. It was a picture of a man scourging his father with a leash. It was not a leash like any other, but his own nipper child, which he had grasped by the heel and was handling him as a whip, giving unrestrained blows to his father.

As the baby was nibbling the entire body with his piglet teeth, the grandfather was stroking his forelock with tenderness. I have pictured his facial features in my memory to this day as we speak."

Meanwhile, Sherif looked at me straight in my eye-ball and kept describing with terror written on his face "That physiognomy wasn't of a human being but of a monster, and one couldn't tell if it was crying or laughing. To this very day, I am astounded as I recall that scene.

And then, all of a sudden, we stopped, and the environment around us was illuminated by a blinding light. Meanwhile, the figure of the girl accompanying me began to emerge from the dark.

At this moment, she released her white, milky hand. Wasp-waisted and lissom, with blonde hair that poured out like a linn trailing over her round breasts, like the sunlight over a pond of rare fowls, it made me think that some shiny, wonderful fairy was standing in front of me. Smiling, she asked me with a bubbling voice 'What did you think of the exhibition, Uncle Sherif? Would you prefer to return to any of the images that have loomed in your mind?'

'It was quite impressive. And now that I have visited and seen this historic string of pearl photos of the city, I feel a different person.' I answered."

At this moment, Sherif bends his body towards me, and with his eyes sparkling with excitement, he said "In a few of the photos, I could see you rowdy laddies at different times. The most recent photo belonged to last year, when you were celebrating a football match won by your local team in the city centre. The years that have passed have left their marks, and much has changed in your appearance, but your frolic dance as happy as a sandboy has remained the same from the times ever since I first met you. To get back to what I was saying" continues Sherif, "I told the lady that even though I couldn't flick through all the photos because most probably it was her hair that blocked my sight and made my mind go blank, in any case, it would be beneficial to my own interest to come around another day, since leaving some of the photos unseen cultivates ones curiosity to come back and look at it afresh.

'This is the reason why you are still a bachelor?' jumps in the mysterious missy, as I was about to finish my remark, 'Hehe, you like to peek incessantly in keyholes?'

'No, quite the opposite,' I answered her in sheer amazement, 'it is like, for example, when you go to a restaurant, you do not order all the dishes on the menu at the same time. So, it is the same with a lady; some things you have to promise to your soul mate for another time in order for the ember to stay aglow, the same as it was the first time you met. But this is a very personal matter that belongs only to me, and I would prefer not to discuss it any further. Please, is it not enough that an old lady hurls malevolence at me in the lobby area, but even here, I have to go through such kind of persecution?'

'Why didn't you know that the old ladies are nothing else than toys in the devil's hands?!' she guffawed at me as she answered. So reverberating was the laugh that I had

to crouch down, covering my ears with both my hands so as not to be completely deafened, while the echo of her voice kept fading away. In the blink of an eye, the walls disintegrated, and now I found myself in front of the two towering pillars from where I entered. I collected the shoe left inside the porch as I got in, took the other out of my pocket, and put them on.

When I went out on the main street, I saw you passing and stopped by to say hello. My heart leaps to see you fine and well after so many years. I believe that a young man attractive like yourself, who likes to bat his eyelashes a mile away, should, without a doubt, be married or at least engaged?" he tells me half-jokingly after he concluded his narrative and winks at me.

"Huhh, I have not yet been able to find my close-to-heart restaurant." I reply to him smiling, "For the time being, I'm content with trying my luck going out on a pull at the bean wagons. What's more, I haven't had the time to be on the prowl since I started to work as a night auditor at a hotel, whereas, during the day, I do not even know how the time slips away."

"Io and behold, from a hassle scoundrel that I once knew, now you don't have enough time even to take a deep breath and mellow out." he pokes fun at me with his debonair parlée.

"Even on those days when I am not at work, I either take a rest or meet my buddies and acquaintances." I tell him.

"What about Ilir 'Hummer-forehead' and Besian 'Rice- pudding'? I remember you were joined at the hip, and when you got together, there was no stone unturned in the entire neighbourhood. Do you still hang out together, or have you gone your separate ways once and for all?"

"Hammer-forehead" and "Rice-pudding" are my bosom chums' nicknames. The first belongs to Ilir, since his forehead was wide like a hummer, and the second to Besian because he has blond wavy hair and a white freckled face that made him look like a rice pudding. While my nickname was "the Eel", as I was quite agile and slippery, and you would never be able to catch my tail in the same place twice.

"We are still best mates, and time has only strengthened our relationship even more. Ilir has become a talented sculptor and one of his works is currently displayed in the centre of Municipality K.

When he is 'taking a break', I mean without a job, he roams with his art associates in exhibitions and biennales that take place in different countries.

As for Besian, he emigrated for a better life and decided to come back only two years ago, but things have gone downhill for him, and today he is incarcerated. A harrowing journey indeed."

"I truly feel bitter," murmurs Sherif, " what happened to that poor fellow?"

"It is complicated. A collar-and-tie blockhead's affair which ended in a family tragedy."

"Send my caring thoughts to him and may the porridge in Pompey go light on his belly." says Sherif, shaking his huge, bearish head.

"I will, but by the way, how did things turn out for yourself? Why did you suddenly disappear from the workshop and the neighbourhood?" I asked him.

"My story is complicated too, and a bit long to narrate. Therefore, you have to bear with me if you would like to hear a piece of it."

"Never mind, I am off from work today. I am all ears." I said to him.

In the meantime, the bar where we were seemed to shake to the rafters, and as somebody entered or exited the place and the door opened, plumes of cigarette smoke and din of noises blew out, unloading on the street like small snow avalanches.

"It was the beginning of December," Sherif begins to limn his account, "when one day in the afternoon, two men wearing overcoats down to the knee went up and down the neighbourhood, meeting with different people and random passers-by.

After visiting all the shops in the area, they finally stopped at my workplace. One of them had slightly protruding jaws, big brown eyes, and whizzed some goofy tune out with each breath he took and every word he spoke, while the other's posture was as stiff as a ramrod with curly hair and an aquiline face.

'Comrade Sherif?' the frizzy, haired guy addresses me. 'Yes, that is I.' I answered, 'How can I be of any service

to you gentlemen?'

'You should come with us.' they replied in one voice.

At that time, it was a common occurrence that when one of the few automobiles in circulation owned by the state had a flat tyre and was stuck in the road, I took my work tools and the essential materials with me and went to repair it.

'Yep, in a second, here I come.' I told them, ' I'll just get my stuff and I'll be there.'

'Nope, there is no need to.' both of them answered me at the same time again, 'Shut the workshop and come with us.' the guy with a whistling sound in his voice spoke firmly.

'On the spot.' I answered.

I closed the shop and after they clasped me between them, off we went side by side. We were like one and the same body. We even took the steps in synchrony with each other, as if at one moment performing a military parade, and at another like we were spinning a folkloric dance…"

At the last words, Sherif is bewildered for a few seconds and starts to whisper through his teeth "At that time, when everything was owned by the state, so much so that you couldn't call your soul your own, it wasn't an oddity for some faceless bureaucrat with chic boots and an iron fist in a velvet glove to fetch you, clip your wings and pack you wherever he fancied. Then the saying was 'wherever the … needs it'. And so the 'new men', though it wasn't anything like that at all, at most it can be said that it was 'a new figurine', who wasn't led by the superstitions or primitive customs, but from a small group of people with eternal power, which had given themselves the right to create laws, and for others to follow them blindly, at all events this man remained an alienated being without hope of being freed from the threads of this suicidal mechanism. My craft has taught me through the years that every bicycle wheel, no matter how perfect it may be, sooner or later will need dishing.

Anyway, as I was walking side by side with those two men that showed up at my workshop without giving any beforehand notice, and after I evaluated in my consciousness with a qualm of terror all of my dodgy actions in the last two decades and it didn't ring a bell to me that I had diverted from the Party's guideline, I asked my two fellow travellers 'Companions, where are we off to?'

'We are under our superior's order to escort you to the headquarters, where they will explain everything to you in

detail.' answers the hook-nose fellow, 'We have no other information. We simply execute the warrant.'

There was no way I didn't understand that something fishy was going on, but losing my wits wasn't a choice for me in those conditions. Therefore, I had to kiss the rod, and in keeping my composure, I walked side by side with the two contracted-faced undercover agents. Shortly after, we arrived at the entrance of a retractable roof cinema, which was shut down since it was winter, and there was not a soul to be seen around the place. The main wooden door, which incorporated small squares of frosted glass, was padlocked with thick links shackles. At the end of the wall was a crimson sheet metal hatch that had to be the employee's entrance. We knocked, and somebody stared from the peephole inside and opened the door. We walked through a narrow passage to the main square, where the films are shown during summer. A crowd of people gathered there was bursting with a whoop and a holler, giving piggybacks in a free-for-all environment. What struck me was that everybody had turned their backs to the giant outdoor screen fabric and were positioned facing the main building. The walls around were painted yellow, and the green striped benches were placed sideways to the two-story structure. On the first floor, the windows were closed from the inside with wooden casement, painted green too, while on the second floor, in the middle of the façade of the building, the projection film port drew everybody's attention.

A man with his hand raised stood in one of the windows of the second floor, who looked at one time as if he was saluting the crowd and at another as if he was giving directions to people inside the room. I and my two

companions threaded our way through this human throng next to the walls, and we headed towards the building. As we got in, I came across an excruciating emptiness, and because of the humidity inside, water bubbles formed on my eyebrows and eyelashes, and I started to toil with my respiration.

The cheers coming from outside were drowned by the clickety-clack of an immense number of typewriters from rooms on both sides of the corridor, pecking the rubber platen inexhaustibly. A multitude of people, they too wearing overcoats, were buzzing around with paperwork on their hands.

We went up to the first floor, and the two escorts handed me over at an office, where the man that I had seen on my way in was still motioning to the crowd from within, and then the two fellows accompanying me left. The waving man was trying to say something, but the words he could utter were muffled and mumbled. It was impossible to make any sense out of it, except that he was blabbering while slurring as if he had marbles in his mouth. Up close, I could see his face was cracked, and the red blood vessels were bulging over the skin. Beside him stood a sculpture that was moulded to reflect a man with his hand raised, to which he was tied inseparably with transparent glass pipes and was giving his best effort to imitate.

In the room, beside him, there was a table with twelve other people standing there, seated in a row, who were sketching on papers, glancing at that human shadow from time to time as he waived his hand, that ever more so was resembling an embalmed corpse. As they finished their sketches, every one of them folded the papers afterwards and slipped them through a postal box placed beside the door. One of them, a paunchy, chubby-necked fellow,

almost bald-headed apart from a few hairs on the back of his head that he had grown and tangled to form a single lock that looked like a rat's tail, asked me to sit in the chair that was standing in front of the table.

After he had a deep breath, he grumbled and, while rubbing his forehead, told me 'Sherif, Sherif, Sherif! Much tribulation you bear. You have to confess in order to break free. Do you know what I mean? A heavy burden you are carrying on your shoulders.'

'I have handed over all the excess materials and leftovers to the head office at the end of each month. Those are all registered on the inventory. My conscience would have never been at ease, even if one nail would be missing.' the words poured at once out of my mouth.

'Shut your word hole; I'm not talking about darts nor about razor blades. You cannot ambush someone with pins and needles, but about something much graver and more serious. Through your action or inaction, and we have kept a weather eye on you for a long time, you have been nurturing wrong ideas to the citizens. It is better for you to spew your guts out, for if we unfastened the sack (clenching his fist and swinging it at me menacingly), you will become a double vent sack.' he keeps snapping at me. 'I lead a regular life without excesses. Very rarely do I go out and meet a friend at the factory city's council. Even then, as we meet, we talk about the new production norms given to us as guiding principles from the leadership and

how to exceed them.

With my mother, with whom I live, sometimes we teasingly discuss what is more beneficial, the loom weaving crafts or those that are created by the latest cloth processing manufacturing. In my opinion, though, I embrace the idea

of the high quality of the loom craft, as well as the emotional aspect when you see from start to finish your end product, while the multicolour threads wave, for example, a mat or a dress, still the crafts cannot compete with the benefits that come from mass production in plants and factories, even though the quality does not score as high.'

'Hearken to me!' the paunchy man intimidates me further, 'Not married, affirmative. Not very sociable; you got that under your belt. You teach the kids in the neighbourhood how to stand up against their parents' advice, which makes us doubt that there is more to it. And our reasonable suspicion constitutes a possible risk of action that you may take in the future. And this we do not tolerate by any means.' he concluded his sentence by standing up. He went by the window, looked out into the crowd, and crossed his arms over his chest, pausing thoughtfully for a moment, and then spoke 'See those people down there? They are the film crewmembers that have been carefully selected from among the folks. Everyone is eager for the film rays that we unleash from here to every home via the TV screens. And we are very eager for their blind obedience and their unwavering loyalty. Of course, the flares can't shine far without burning someone. Since time immemorial, God has given us a leader, whose body, or the better of him, we have preserved in this sculpture from generation to generation. And every ruler in all epochs tries to resemble him, like our current leader.

While they from below see the radiant flares that we emit from here, from above, we see the dark clouds on the horizon that threaten their souls, wherefrom our current leader draws forth his inspiration and tries to articulate to us by means of gestures. And our task is to outline every turn of the hand and alter it into guidelines and instructions

for the general public. And whoever retaliates even slightly against this regime that we have imposed necessarily seeks to cause sedition. And for this reason, under the agitprop article and the forming of a gang to overthrow the people's government, charges which are punished without mercy and with an iron fist, it is good for you to speak up and show your accomplices before it is too late.' he concluded by clenching his right hand and squeezing it tightly, so much so that his whole body began to quake.

'Dear comrade…'

'Head-director,' he filled in.

'… I am neither the first nor the last person on this planet to be single. I cannot be blamed for being unlucky in love, so at least respect me in my misfortune. Secondly, for the accusation that I am less sociable, it is not at all true that I turn my back on society but on the contrary, this happens because I am careful in the selections I make. When I make a friend, my desire is to have an everlasting relationship. As for the children, it pains me to see them with tear marks on their faces after their parents have reprimanded them, not to mention the fact that many of them hit them. Isn't this a tragedy!?

Is it not the first ruler himself, whom every leader worships and strives to emulate, who said that the word should fill the hearts of men and convince them, who by his example taught us that our souls could not be won at gunpoint?'

'Yes, as true as the fact that he was the first to put his chest against the muzzle of the guns. How many of you can do this?' he kept ranting and raving at me even more fiercely than before 'Guard, take this class decadent and kick him out of here.'

The two escorts entered and grabbed me by the arm, same as before, but this time their pincer-like hands exerted an even greater force as if to convey without words, from the intonation of the chief director's voice, the sentence taken, and they carted me off to one of the rooms on the ground floor.

There was very little furniture inside it. A steel nightstand, a few chairs, and a desk made of unpolished beech wood, the indent and skelf of which I carried for a very long time on my body and face, after interrogational torture procedures.

A metal-rimmed lamp dangled from the ceiling, casting a dim yellow light across the room. A little further on the only desk standing there, there was a typewriter, behind which a dwarf sometimes appeared to its left and sometimes to its right, and then slowly poking his head above it, looked with inquisitive eyes at every muscle I moved.

With every stroke of that typewriter, my flesh was cut into one hundred pieces, my bones crumbled and my joints split open, and blood mixed with saliva and other bodily secretions spewed out, so much so that even I did not believe that my soul had such a secret, underground lake, so deep.

The afternoons came and went with plumes of tobacco and the jeers of the investigating agents, who wandered around the room in an elliptical motion the same as the faint-light swinging lamp, and me, who stammered at every accusation they slandered with the single phrase 'Innocent'.

Then, when they had their fill and pulled what they were seeking out of you, they would bang their own drum to each other about how they had terror-stricken X-person

and had made such and such other to confess and sign a false charge. Because if they didn't petrify you to the core, they would go crazy and very easily jump down your throat and be diligent in their craft until dawn.

In the meantime, I languished in my cell night after night with the others. And while we were trying to hold ourselves together from the many inflicted wounds and psychological terror we experienced, we fell asleep leaning on each other crosswise, as the cries and pleas that most of us let out in our dreams, or unconsciously as we fainted dead away, resonated.

I have seen so many people being taken completely withered away from that cruel sarcophagus. Days, weeks and months passed with me cooped up until suddenly, the cell door opened, and I was called forth. From there, I was put into exile together with my mother, who at that time was in her eighties. Maybe if I had not kept a stiff upper lip and had accepted their false accusation, my fate would be unknown. And long after that, while in exile, the only word I could utter for months as my mouth trembled was the word 'Innocent'."

As Sherif was narrating this last part, he had turned into a shadow of himself. Pale around the gills and with his chin twitching like a perch, he spoke in a dropping voice, almost fading away.

Although there was a lot of chattering in the bar, I was hanging on to his every word, so much so that I could absorb the meaning of every single word, even though I could not hear a sound coming out of his mouth. It was enough for me to snatch the words from his lips to be well away.

"It was an alpine village," Sherif continues to narrate "where I suffered the years of exile. It is located on a plateau

between two mountains and at its piedmont, on its southern side, there is a lake that also serves as a border with other villages. While to the north of it, at that time, was located a police station, from which point onward oscillates the succession of mountain ranges with bare slopes and steep rocks. All in all, it is a fistful of land with a harsh climate and limited hours of sunshine. About three to four hours in winter and a pinch more in summer. However, its beauty was well-adjusted and balanced by the lake that was filled in the spring with white lilies, which, according to the legends, happens because a lonely naiad combs her hair on its shore. There were many other souls like ourselves in that place.

We lived in very harsh conditions, in wooden shacks built from scratch by ourselves, and we did menial labour the whole time we spent there. We managed to eat somehow and kept our spirits alive with bites of bread.

Later, I found out that the investigator who interrogated me was from this region, two villages away, which surprised me immensely. Many times, I wondered what crimes these villagers living in that area had possibly committed.

The first years were also the most difficult, as we had to adapt to the harsh conditions we encountered there, but little by little, I learned to love that place with all my heart. There was something majestic about it, which fascinated me and made me converse without articulating a sound with the shadows of the trees, the crystal waters of the wellspring, the moon during the long fair nights, and everything around seemed to want to communicate to me something of itself.

And when the political system collapsed, and we were able to walk free wherever we chose, I decided to live on a similar plateau, not far from where we had been banished for so many years, but with a more suitable climate, where I

still live to this very day. It was impossible for me to depart from that mud and scum. Those days kept raking over the ashes when we lived with just enough to keep body and soul together, as the burning tears dripped into the lake of sorrow in the wrinkled and clenched hands of my mother. Her caress that shook off the dust and rejuvenated the stiffened muscles caused by malnutrition and excruciating fatigue while we were working our soul's case out appears

in my dreams every night.

She gave me her last kiss before she left this world with the same love and hopes as the first time she held me in her arms when I was born. Her generous heart helped any fellow convict as if he were her own son. Her unconquerable spirit that did not bow to any hardship and enormity aimed towards our family, as well as her lullabies that ripped the dark mask of the night when I woke up sweating from nightmares and bad dreams, are the memories that still hold me bound to this blessed land.

Her voice still reverberates in those caves and mountain slopes, especially when the wind blows wild."

As soon as he finished the last sentence, Sherif fell silent for a while, and a warm tear ran down his cheek. In the bar, the scattered noises here and there faded, and the people paused from what they were saying for a few moments, staring at the door as it suddenly cracked open from a gust of wind barging in from outside.

Then, one of the staff members went and closed it off, and my conversations with Sherif shifted to shooting the breeze and sipping a little snakebite medicine, while digesting a few distant memories. The time elapsed lavishly.

He went on to tell me how he spent his time doing a little bit of livestock rearing and farming. He had also been able

to build a small reservoir near a stream that flowed down from the top of the mountains and used it to breed fish. He kept what he needed for daily use, and he went out and sold the rest in the mart down the town. He seemed quite content with the life he was leading, and also he felt that there was nothing left to bind him to the city life anymore. We promised each other that we would meet again at the first opportunity, and after exchanging addresses and

phone numbers, we parted with great fondness.

Out on the street, the townsfolk and traffic have thinned out, and every now and then, you could see a dog elegantly throwing its paws at the nearest dustbin.

The tops of buildings still reflect the last, washed-out rays of the sun as the night crawls up the city like a heavy, tenebrous cloak, slowly and meticulously devouring entire districts.

The billboards above the shops and on the side of the roads, with the variety of bright lights and colours, beckoned me for a stroll around the many bars in the city centre before I went home, where I drifted off to sleep in my room over the childhood photo album.

* * *

Th

e next day, the morning burst forth by lightning, the chimneys and antennas shimmering and flickering on the terraces of the buildings.

Apparently, the weather, with the stubbornness characteristic of the spring season, seeks to swap the record whenever it feels like satisfying its caprices. A wetness, as it moistens my cheek, wakes me up, and a salty taste lingers on my tongue as it drips over my lips. I open my eyes slightly, and I see that looking at me with tearful eyes is Ikun, one of the residents with whom I share the house where I live. We have been the longest-staying tenants here ever since we were students. The lodgers who live in the other rooms come and go frequently. Sometimes, even we are surprised when a new resident, freshly arrived, comes into the kitchen making free with food and drinks from the refrigerator before introducing themselves to us.

"Why are you so sad, Ikun? What happened?" I ask her, "Are you upset again with your supervisor at work because he puts all the burdens on you, as well as the failures, while he takes the credit for himself? Or did your fiancé disturb you with an undue word or two while drinking a glass of wine?"

"Neither one nor the other." she answers, wiping her tears, "I have trained myself not to fall prey to petty trifles, and in the end, a clear conscience does not have to invent dishonest excuses. Higher in command than my supervisor is someone else in the hierarchy, and no matter how hard one tries, the veil may hide the face but it cannot hide the bride. This can never happen. The prejudices that bother me while practising the profession that I love so much, instead of discouraging me, trigger me to work harder. As for my fiancé, whenever he drinks, which he does only on special occasions, he would never get into a drunken brawl, as he is a lamb of God and not a Hogan's goat."

She goes to the window and, with great finesse, extends her spindly left hand, girded with bracelets, braids and trinkets that jingle, as if to warn of the presence of some drifting yearning for sirocco and begins to draw silhouettes and lines gliding the pulp of her index finger over the glass. "Do you not understand? You're the one who has annoyed me." she says while moving her hand up and down, "Lately, we haven't seen each other even for the morning's tea and sympathy. Yesterday, you were off from work, but you didn't show up all day. Don't make me feel a draft in this house. We have not hidden anything from

each other since we first met."

"I hate you when you blame me for all the calamities on this planet." I reply, smiling, "However, your warning voice is never harmful, however harsh it may be. And how on earth can it even pass through your mind that I'm avoiding you to make you feel bad? If you weren't going to be any longer in this house, not only would I not be here either, but the streets and alleys of this city would be longing to hear the sound of my footsteps as I walked through them. How

many times have we discussed that the third shift is heavy and rough, even if you don't have a great deal of work to do? It's enough that you have to stay on call all the time. During which the slightest inconvenience alarms you and makes you edgy. And when you wake up in the morning, I have just laid down to bed. Though I'm asleep I sense you as in a dream, talking around the house. Yet when I wake up, everything you said is cloudy and blurred, your being is closer to me than anything else in this endless ocean of things we call our world. Afterwards, every day when I wake up, I sniff a whiff of your perfume that has wafted into the hallway, and it feels like we've just been together. Yesterday I met a charming old man whom I have known since I was a child. Unfortunately, he was incarcerated and then exiled for a long time. His story was a true horror, where the saga of state crimes and atrocities was hidden behind collegial decisions. This is also the reason why we did not have a chance to get together yesterday to spill the tea, as we are in the habit of doing so during my days off from work. And as I came home last night, I didn't see any light in your room, so I didn't want to disturb you. But no worries, I'll just get up and make a builder's tea, which will put a smile back on our faces as compensation." I tell her

and get ready to get out of bed.

"You keep hiding something from me T." Ikun still insists, "Your eyes are more humble than usual, your body is more bent, and without you noticing, although you try to cover all this behind a flattering smile, you always end the sentences with a groan.

No matter how well you act, you cannot mask it out. You simply cannot sugar-coat the pill to me. Don't tell me that cunning slut has shown up again."

"Who are you talking about?" I ask her.

"It's her." she mumbles to herself.

"Please, that person you have in mind, not only have I not seen her in a long time, but even if I met her, she would not make any impression on me. That old flame has long been extinguished. Time has erased her name like a wave washing away the letters written on the seashore with a stick."

"Then tell me why every sign that vibrates on your face speaks of her? I know that sometimes I am quick to make wrong inferences. I really wish that this was the case, too, because I can't bear to see you go through such a period of disappointment again, as happened a few years ago when the shadow drew you to haunted corners."

"And I don't know if I would be the person I am today without you. But since then, many things have changed. Not in the sense that I closed myself off and no longer trust anyone. On the contrary, it would not make sense to close that door, but today, I am the first to ambuscade myself, and so my heart is open to everything. You are right when you say that I seemed worried to you, but the cause of that is the imprisonment of Besian, my childhood friend. With all the troubles and worries he had to face recently, what happened to him a few days ago really caved in hard on him."

"How foolish that I am sometimes. It didn't occur to me at all, knowing how close you two are. It's very shocking what happened, and I hope his soul finds redemption in one way or another. Do not move from the bed. I will brew some fresh tea, and prepare the breakfast."

"All righty then, I'm coming, and we'll prepare it together." I say to her and then I rise up on my elbows, leaning on the back of the bed, "I can't lay down any longer. Go ahead so I can get dressed, and I'll be there right away."

Meanwhile, Ikun leaves the room, and I get ready to take the clothes from the stool, but I see they are no longer where I had put them last night. I look around, but I don't see them anywhere. I go to the wardrobe to check in there, but it is empty. I open the drawers of the nightstands one after the other. Those were empty, too. In the room, everything was in its place, except for the clothes and the liners. Those had disappeared into nothing. Behar is the first person coming to my mind, a glow worm that three weeks ago, Ikun and I found sloshed to the gills under a bush on the side of the road in the early hours of the morning, not far from a kebab shop. The temperatures were below zero, and we thought that if we left him to his fate, he would probably freeze to the point of being a candidate for a pair of wings, so we carried him home with us. Although advanced in age, he has an iron-out-wrinkled face, and when he has fallen asleep, he looks all wool and a yard wide. As for his family, when we asked him about them, he didn't answer us but just snorted like a raging bull with bloodshot eyes, looking around as if scorching hot vapours were coming out of the floor and walls to suffocate him. It was obvious that, whatever the case, it was a sad story, so we didn't push the discussion in that direction any further.

The next day, when he woke up, we found out that he had been living rough since he could remember, and the only relatives, friends and spouse he had was his booze. He kept a white Panama hat on his head and wore a military green jacket. He had icy blue eyes, and his body was skinny and not very tall. Every time he pondered before saying something, he would rub his upper lip with his front teeth, and then he would fire as a wind-up toy, swirling his small palms in the air. He has an exquisite sense of humour, and we grew fond of each other almost

instantly. By pure chance, two of the rooms in the house where we lived were unoccupied and ready to rent, so we arranged for him to live in one of those, and Ikun and I would cover his expenses.

"Ikun, I can't find my clothes," I call her from the halfway open door "someone entered my room and cleared everything away. Ask Behar if he knows anything about it."

"What? How is that possible?! Ah T., I forgot to tell you that Behar had an accident yesterday evening while crossing the road in the city centre. His eyesight deteriorated as a result of inebriation, and because of the blurry vision, he did not notice a puddle of water right in front of him. He dived in with both feet and slid wide over it. His pelvic wall collapsed and he broke his shinbone, so he had to have a surgical intervention, and the doctors had to put a metal plate on it. He is now resting in intensive care, and the medical personnel will keep an eye on him until he gets better. They are already taking care of him at Hospital No. 3. Anyway, I have a few spare garments from my fiancé that should fit you. I'm going to get them right away."

The clothes were a little tight on my shoulders and thighs, but somehow, I managed to slip into the trousers and shirt that she brought me.

Ikun cooks a finger-licking good breakfast. Ham, sausage, fried eggs, milk and honey. After we chewed and savoured every bite of the food in front of us, she asked me if I had time to go with her to visit Behar in the hospital. I wanted to, but at that time, I felt knackered. The night before, even though I never woke up, I did not have

a restful sleep at all. It was as if I was drifting between dreams, and any moment as I was about to be awakened, a thin, sleepy string, extending beyond the unconscious, would pull me back into fragmentary dreams, one after the other to infinity. A vicious circle that hung over me until Ikun cut its thread in the morning. So, even though I was eager to see Behar, I passed the offer on that occasion and told her to send greetings on my behalf and to wish him a speedy recovery.

She twisted the muffler around her thin, milk-coloured neck, put the red hood on her head, and, as she went out, she told me that a missive was delivered for me.

Besian's name was written on the corner of the white envelope. Unable to meet him in person, as detainees are only allowed to be visited by close family members and lawyers, the only way to communicate with each other was through mail. And this was the first letter he sent me from the detention.

I remember when we were in the second year of high school, and he had to make his way out into the world as an immigrant. It was a time when people poured out of borders, like at the Berlin Wall when it crumbled. He left behind his mother, father and younger brother. Before he left the house, in the last moments, resting his head on his mother's lap, his almond-shaped eyes reddened, and two drops of tears slipped down his cheeks. And then he went away, with his hair all messed up, wearing corduroy the round the houses, a tartan dock jacket, and clodhoppers that were too loose, as those were a size or two bigger than his feet.

The years rolled by one after the other, and finally, two springs ago, he returned back home. As soon as he arrived, he got engaged to a girl who had been a neighbour in the

apartment where his grandmother and grandfather lived, in a coastal town, whom he visited during the summer, spending most of his holidays there. Ever since, while playing with his friends, he had accidentally walked over a doll's house she had built in the hall of the building, and after he helped her to reassemble it, they had never been separated. You could say they were in love at first sight since they were kids, if such a thing is possible.

Besian didn't talk about the life he spent in emigration. And when they asked him about it, he gave a general description without picturing many details and always wrapped up his argument with the sentence "It was not Elysian fields." After some time, during a street check by the police, some seeds of a plant that sweetly plucks the dreams of youth were found in his pocket, and that was enough to arrest and accuse him in court as a prominent trafficker and criminal. This happens at a time when this plant is the most cultivated in the gardens of any authority. However, since he had not been convicted before, the court sentenced him to a conditional release with a probation period of one year. This made him withdraw into himself, and in his conversations with others, he became irritated over the smallest and most insignificant things. He had lost his job, as he was now considered a person who presented high social risk, while the family income had been drained by ambulance chasers, money mules, prosecutors and judges. One day, in an argument with his father, he had lost his temper and was pushing him away, and while sliding back, he lost his footing and fell down, hitting the back of his head hard on the floor. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done, and his father left this world instantly as he touched the ground. This is the sad story of my mate, whose soul languishes in the cell.

I sit on the sofa, open the envelope and start reading "What's going on T.? I didn't open the letter you sent me a few days ago right away. I've lost track of time, and every day feels just like the day before. Most of the time here, I lay down and rivet my eyes on the particles of light that filter through the palm-wide chink in the wall, and I must have put on a few pounds. Besides myself, there are three other inmates with me in a room of ten square meters, including the toilet, and we are locked up almost all day, except for one hour, when we have the right to go out in the yard airing.

The fellow convict who shares the twin bed above me is called Erald, a priggish fellow who tries to shoe everybody's mule. He has small eyes and short eyelashes, with fine jaws and a hatchet face. He is a recidivist, and in the punishment that will be announced by the court this time for the theft of a mirror of a vehicle, he risks being sentenced to at least two years in prison. When, in the ongoing conversation, someone from the opposite cell expressed surprise that he was married because he looked quite young, I was impressed by his reply when he said, 'My kid has become as big as a ccconvict.' pronouncing the letter 'C' hard and following his slang with a sly laugh.

Buiar is bunked up after me, with George utilizing the top bunk. Buiar has a solid body with broad shoulders and a huge, square head. He is a guy who listens to his better angels, and before he expresses himself, he ponders well what he is about to say. On the back of his left hand are tattooed four dots in the shape of a square and a dot in the middle, representing the cell's four walls with him in the middle. He was previously convicted of aggravated robbery, and now he is charged with resisting law enforcement during a routine control at a checkpoint.

George, a short, dark-skinned lad with rough hair that sticks up like a brush, is smiling constantly, although sometimes when he gets really jumpy, it's better to stay out of his way. He is otherwise known as the 'Gat', and he was arrested for firearm and weapon offences.

Yesterday, we were making a boiler to heat up the water, since here in detention, the taps do not have any hot water running inside the cell, and we are only allowed to go to the shower room twice a week. After stripping a triple socket with a switch and undressing both wire tips corresponding to lines one and two, respectively, metal plates were placed on each end. And you cannot imagine the trouble we went through to find those two metal plates, since sharp metal objects are strictly prohibited in here. Finally, I winged it and cut off the end of the broom's stick, which consists of a light aluminium tube, elastic enough not to be considered dangerous for keeping in the custody areas. However, its composition allows the conduction of an electric current well enough. We also put a rubber stopper between the two plates in order not to make a short circuit and fry our brains out. And while we were getting all this done by creating a live wire, I cherished the childhood memories of how we used to put together swords, crowbars, and all kinds of self-made toys. I am not sure if you remember that one time when we ran across an antique radio thrown away behind the main building, and we all rushing in to hack it apart, kicking it or striking it with whatever we had in our hands. At that moment, Ilir told us to hold our horses and proposed that it would be better if we disassembled it to have a look at how that byzantine machine worked from the inside. Then, he leapt at the task with such attentiveness, which has always been

his speciality. Taking a screwdriver from his pocket, he began hacking away at the screws one by one. And the rest of us, observing him, racing to make haste slowly in order to help him out, like nurses in an operating room. Oratory has never been one of his hidden talents, but stones and wood, of whatever kind, after carving them masterfully with chisels and fingers, Ilir makes those worth a thousand words. Tiny bits of that 'habit' has stuck with me too. As soon as I was done with the water heater, I opened the envelope you had sent me earlier in custody. While reading it, my soul demolished the walls of the cell and wandered somewhere in the streets of our hood and the city. Your smile, voice and movements spanned along with the words on paper making them truly come alive, granting me the gift of a few flashes of freedom. The sweeter those moments tasted, when my mind and soul were as free as the air, the more bitter was the reality afterwards.

Everyone knows that I'm locked up in here because of murder, but they don't know that the person whose life I took was my own father. I haven't told them because it's still too hard for me to cope with what has happened.

The chandelier at the top of the house is smashed to pieces, and I bleed hereafter in the dark by the thousands of glass panes that crackle under my feet every step that I take. Will there be light for me at the end of the tunnel? Ah, how mortifying I feel for my mother whose bed I left dry and her son far away. She tries to take care so that I lack nothing, starting from food to clothing, because in here, apart from iron bars, electricity and scheduled water supply, you have to provide and bring everything else by yourself. I'm locked in the cage and my mom a slave of my cruel luck out there. Misfortunes never come singly!

When things get unbearable in the house of many doors, the conversation that brings in a breath of fresh air are the back-of-the-envelope calculations that we make of the possible years we are going to spend in the dungeon. Buiar claims that if he had felt his collar two months later, he would have been able to secure as much income from his profitable shady 'activities' as he needed in order to grease the palm of the judge or the prosecutor with oil of angels. As a result, everyone would be happy with a smile fixed on their faces. 'Dosh,' he says, repeatedly rubbing the thumb with the tip of his index and middle fingers, 'a golden key that can open any door.'

Meanwhile, George has bestowed the tocher and he waits for the messenger any day now with a happy announcement. His mother always fetches him home- baked cakes, which, according to local superstitions, means that she has put his affairs straight, and the good news of his release will not take long to be delivered.

While Erald is afraid of the fact that he will receive the highest possible sentence because, firstly, he is a repeated offender; secondly, the crime was ordinary; and, thirdly, he could not afford to cover the court expenses, and as a result, he also had an attorney free of charge, appointed by the law.

As for me, I pinned all my hopes on the act of the expertise to mark the death as accidental, although in itself, the subject does not impress me the slightest since no flow of time can wash my father's blood from my hands.

Every time I discuss this with Buiar, he always advises me to state that I committed the act in self-defence, and he doesn't understand why it didn't occur to me to emphasize this in the first confession I made in front of the police. Then, seeing me not giving an answer in response but just

sighing and turning my head to the other side, he further adds, to comfort me, that it is normal to forget crucial details when you are in a state of psychological trauma. And he spurs me on to mention this to the prosecutor as soon as possible before the investigation is closed and the case is sent for trial.

Eh, dear T., I am convinced even more as every day passes that a group of unscrupulous people, in the name of justice and society, keep us locked inside this Cyclops' cave and, from time to time, watch us through the prison porthole, to see how fat we are getting. On the one hand, they beat their chests in front of society and boast that, as long as they are in charge of affairs, they are out of any danger. On the other hand, they skin us alive and have the under privileged's guts for garters for the reason that they are not capable of hoodwinking and stealing enough from society to pay them the obligatory tribute. As a result of this dichotomy, people without support and skills in underground money muling are punished harshly, and in many occasions unjustly, to cover up the crimes of those who have support from authority. And if the perpetrators are not punished, it is useless to deal with the effects of a perverted conscience because news spreads fast in a small country like ours, where a punishment unjustly given to one and the undeserved release of another simply adds fuel to the flames, and the fire is a good servant but a bad master.

Here, the hearings are held right after the dead of the night. When the hounds that watch us over at custody are silent, and their growl is dissipated and completely absorbed by the liquid darkness of the sky, right when the moon and the stars shine ever more brightly, a creature

that looks like a kangaroo visits us at the porthole. But instead of front legs, it has two powerful forceps and a television-shaped second head extension that juts out from its tummy pocket, to whom it speaks, exchanging remarks explaining the reasons why each of us should be locked in here, waiting in the end for the verdict made by her, which seals the deal.

On his back, you can still make out the eyelet, where the reins used to be held, since, according to the legends that circulate in here, this creature is descended from the horses that were once wild and free, then tamed to serve in the entourage of the tribal coachman. And when the charioteers got down with their feet on the ground, throwing away the reins because some just got tired of it and others were overthrown because everyone already had their own way to follow, they metamorphosed into what they are today. For all those who know this transformed being and have had anything to do with him, Ervin Karanjella is nothing but a money grabber, who feeds on random nonsense and scraps of miserable people. In short, he is a bogus being and systemised gulper. After he clings with his two forceps to the iron bars at the door of our cell and knocks on it cheerfully with his rear legs, he begins to speak, addressing his extension 'Your Honor! I don't know if these walls are made of honey, and they think that it may be a hive, that these insects keep coming back, or what?... Ah, just look what we have in here, there's a fresh meat arrival.' addressing to George, 'Accused of possession of a firearm without a permit. Well, namby-pamby, what bothers you that makes you feel insecure and forces you to carry a gun? Don't you like our toil and sweat in every corner of the country, preserving human integrity and repelling evil from the doorsteps of your homes?!'

'Your Honor!' George addresses the television shape extension, "I see that in the body of the prosecutor shines new fur, but his sweat has the same stench as his predecessors, all fur coat and no knickers. He belongs to a race carefully chosen to guard our vineyards, though the scarecrows themselves used to do a bang-up job, far better than him.'

'We will see how much your skin is worth.' says Ervin Karanjella, grinding his teeth, 'I request that the defendant be held in custody.'

The judge affirms, shaking her head and says 'If you want to get your beauty sleep, though, you need to fork out the dough.'

'Resisting law enforcement, previously convicted of robbery.' Ervin reads the charge facing Buiar, 'Well, master of disaster, all that anger you have inside, why don't you vent it on the sports clubs, which the society we serve so humbly has built for you? Or the savages, but the shuckles adorns them?'

'Your Honor! What the prosecutor sees as anger is love that I inherited from my father. I'm just trying to give back the change to the society in which he was toughened.'

'We will see the change interpreted into prison time.' says the prosecutor mockingly, "I request that the defendant be held in custody.'

The judge affirms, shaking her head and says 'If a bakery's bun fight for you is too much, how is going against the city hall going to turn out all right?!'

'Accused for the theft of a vehicle's mirror, previously convicted of pickpocketing.' the accusation is addressed to Erald, 'Well, leech, why don't you cling to the financial aid the social institutions have calculated so carefully for

people in need? Is it not enough for you to see yourself in front of the mirror of our social care, which we have built so meticulously for this occasion?'

'Your Honor! Your relief is alms that slip through my sieve-like conscience, and the mirror you have provided burdens me with ugly goblins; therefore, I look for another one for myself to gild the lily.'

'Ehhh! When the benefit lizard, lower than a snake's belly, strives to become the ball's belle. I request for the defendant to be held in custody.'

The judge affirms, shaking her head and pronounces 'Bent as a nine bob note craven, make the dance as for seven!' 'Giving a belt that resulted in a death blow. Previously convicted for the possession of powerful seeds.' finally address me, 'Well, cheeky, good for nothing, don't you like how we use power to judge what is right and what is wrong? Do you think that people uneducated in the best universities of the world can exercise it more responsibly?' 'Your Honor! If cutting one's wisdom teeth for power required just one university course, I would have gone through fire and water to acquire it, but I fear it is the moment when the impulse is in balance with reason that puts the cap on everything. ('Ahhh, if only I hadn't lost my

mind, or my father his balance!' I thought to myself.)

'Blimey! Detention has been enriched with thinkers. You will have plenty of time at your disposal, sir, to crack the nut's secrets of the world.

I request that the defendant be held in custody.'

The judge affirms, shaking her head and saying 'You

need a taller lawyer to not rot in the dungeon any longer.'

After reaching the conclusions in our cell, they carried on to the next, where they passed the verdict to release a

defendant, who was accused of murder, acquitting him because, according to the investigations, he assumed that he had a toy gun in his hand, and therefore the shooting was considered involuntary.

In another compartment a short distance away from where I was locked up, an individual charged with trafficking in significant quantities of Class A narcotics had his prison sentence commuted to house arrest.

A few days later, it became known that the address of the house where he was supposed to isolate himself did not even exist and that this person was not only any longer under house arrest but had already lost his trial, an outcome that would not have happened without the blessing of those who cooked that abhorring wafer of release.

In short, the villainy in here corrodes your insides faster than death, dear T.

I don't want to linger any further because I don't want to sour your brain further with the rotten stink that reeks of hypocrisy in here, and I also want to write something to Edlira. Even though I see her once a week and I call her every day, she doesn't stop crying while we speak on the phone. And when I write a note to her, it is as if I somewhat dissipate her woes and ease her heartache.

I end this writing by fondly embracing you, my friend, from the den of hades."

As I fold the paper and place it in the desk drawer, taps are heard at the window, growing louder and louder. The hailstones storm unfolds furiously, and a relentless wind conducts what in a brace of shakes in the surrounding nature turns into a chaotic commotion, where tree branches swing around and about, window panes slam, and hanged and forgotten garments on clotheslines flap recklessly. Due

to the sudden drop in outside temperatures, the inside of the room's window glass is coated with a thin layer of condensed steam, where the drawings made by Ikun just a while ago, while sliding her fingers on its surface, begin to emerge.

Irregular lines, spirals and twists transpose me into foggy thoughts. My eyelids are weary, and I feel utterly helpless in the face of the storm of suffering that any of my friends are experiencing through the life's entanglement. A really bitter baton, which we have to pass to each other and which, no matter how much you try to sweeten it, has basically remained unchanged, coarse and insolvable.

Drowsy as I was, time fluttered dreamily, till I had to

get ready and go to work.