So Close

So Close i was ...

"I turned to leave but then i felt a strong hand grabbed me from behind ...

His other gloved hand in my mouth block my air supply as i struggled to get free.

The next few hours i found myself stand tied up in a barn.

In the first few hours i tried in desperation to get free, but the ropes were tight and my body too weak now to continue the struggle.

But i tried again and again.

Eventually the ropes in my feet started to become loose.

Then he entered.

For the elderly hunter who had recognized me from a poster, 3000$ was a significant amount. "

Gabriela was still healthy and she could have fought when he grabbed her, but at that moment two others came.

And she was again captured almost fainted after her vain efforts.

" I tried to convince my captor to release me.

-Please let me go ...i have money ...i can pay ... please sir don't let them take me back again !!"

But my tears and entries didn't make the farmer to change his mind.

"I took the money that you had already sweety" he said bluntly.

He needed the money.

And a convict girl couldn't offer him anything.

Instead noticing that my feet was started to become loose he tied again my ankles on the rough wood.

There was no chance for me to escape."

I just hope that all this is a lie.

That i will awake in this trees again and i will continue my travel north."

Sunday evening December 1947

"I had never felt so sad, as after being refitted with the leg irons, which the foreman had found lying by the stream, and chained me together with the other girls back in the line during the usual morning inspection."

«All of you, girls! Look at this dumb girl !

She thought she could get away and be a free again!

I promise you - none of you are ever going to be free ! Not without twenty good years here !

You will serve the community for the crime's that you commited.

And i do my best to make you stay here for as much as possible !

If any of you tries to, you will end up just like this one with triple sentence ! Understand ? »

If she didn't believed it before, she is now convinced, that she will never leave the chain gangs again.

Her future life will be as a field convict and she has to adapt herself to this life, if she wants to survive the years to come.

Friday January of 1948

"Leg irons.

Now they are a part of my body.

As time has gone by, I have got accustomed to my noisy steps.

I can bear the scratches in my ankles, without showing any discomfort.

Maybe it was destiny that put me in these clothes and cold chains.

If my former friends from the socialist party in France or the newspaper could see me now.

They are surely still trying to undermine the system in every article.

When I was there my mind was not free.

Now my ankles are chained but my mind has been freed from believing in their flowery phrases.