30 years later... 

Dear incarcerated,

Even in your worst nightmares, you would never have imagined that one day your prison would shrink to the point where there remained no other solution for you but to escape. And you had arranged things so well. Your work, your hobbies, your insurances, your social position, your philosophical or religious options, everything seemed so stable, solid, secure, there for eternity. 

To guarantee the stability and the continuity of your penitentiary reality, you handed over the keys of your destiny to the competent authorities, elected for their respect for the prison environment. You entrusted your health to doctors and to the large pharmaceutical groups. You entrusted the management of your life to economists and to the banks, the definition of your reality to scientists, to religious leaders or to the merchants of light. 

To eliminate any remaining anxieties, you added policies for insurance and retirement. And to ensure the perenity of this oasis of security, you entrusted the education of your children to the public authorities. 

You really could not have done more to guarantee the survival of the system. All it needed was to stay inside, you thought with all your might; all it needed was to ignore the external reality and everything could continue as before. 

But the impossible, the unthinkable, the unexpected happened, exactly where you least expected it. The prison that you built with the force of desperation has become inhabitable. It has shrunk a little more each day. The maintenance costs of the prison do not allow for maintenance of the prisonners. The costs of health have constantly increased, making you even more ill. The cost of living has increased along with unemployment. For less and less comfort, you have been obliged to pay more and more. Cocooned in your cells, you have seen people who should not exist come to knock at your doors to obtain bits of the cozy forgetfulness that you have so carefully cultivated. Incapable of accepting the bankrupcy of your system, you have redoubled your efforts, you have voted for the introduction of the VAT, elected the most famous defenders of the system which guarantees the freedom to be a prisoner, hoping fiercely that all might become as before. 

But the walls of the prison are cracking. They are shrinking inwards inexorably. They allow life to steep in with its collection of uncertainties, of upsets, of obcene exuberance. You have tried to plug the leaks by donating to charities. A wasted effort. The prison is still shrinking. 

Finally, the prison has shrunk so small that it disappear from your sight. You have looked everywhere for the familiar and reassuring sight of a wall, of bars. Nothing remains. But you know that it exists, you feel its atmosphere, its limits. Disoriented, you begin to question yourself. You realize that the prison has been changed into a cage, lying within yourself, and that you were inside the cage. Anxiety kept you inside, the cage shrank. The anxiety changed into pure fear which filled your consciousness, shrinking the cage relentlessly. Suddenly understanding, you become rigid, not daring to breathe even in thought, for fear of being crushed by the bars of the cage. 

From that moment, you are transfixed. Gradually, thanks to your humor, the cage is changed, its texture becomes thread-like like a chrysalis. From your deepest recesses, bubbles of childhood long denied rise to pop at the surface of your consciousness: bubbles of exuberance, of freedom from care, of creativity, of freedom, of mischievous sensuality. Astounded, you realize that nothing will ever be the same as before. 

Alain-Yan Mohr 94